Ex  Libris 
C.  K.  OGDEN 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


, - 


f 


REMINISCENCES 


OP 


FOREIGN    TRAVEL. 


a  fragment  of 


BY 

ROBERT  C.   WINTHROP. 


PRIVATELY    PRINTED. 

1894. 


Copyright,  1894, 
BY  JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON. 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


IV  T ANY  of  these  Reminiscences  were  written  long 
ago,  and  then  laid  aside  for  future  consideration. 
Finding  them  during  the  past  winter  with  other  almost 
forgotten  papers,  I  have  occupied  myself  in  adding  to 
this  little  fragment  of  autobiography,  in  order  to  print 
it  privately  for  my  grandchildren  and  a  few  surviving 
friends.  I  am  sensible  that  portions  of  it  may  seem 
egotistical,  but  this  is  the  privilege  of  an  octogenarian. 
At  all  events,  the  task  has  helped  me  through  some  of 
those  weary  hours  which  press  with  increasing  heavi- 
ness upon  one  who  is  now  within  a  few  weeks  of 
entering  upon  his  eighty-sixth  year. 


ROBERT  C.  WINTHROP. 


90  MARLBOROUGH  STREET,  BOSTON. 
April  19,  1894. 


1057824 


A  FRAGMENT  OF  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


A  VALUED  literary  friend,  to  whom  I  once  sent 
^*-  the  Proceedings  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical 
Society  on  the  Centennial  Anniversary  of  the  birthday 
of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  said  to  me  in  his  note  of  acknow- 
ledgment, "  I  wish  that  you  would  prepare  for  publica- 
tion, now,  or  when  we  have  paid  too  high  a  price  for 
knowledge,  your  recollections  of  the  distinguished 
men  of  both  hemispheres  whom  you  have  known." 
It  was  not  the  first  time  that  such  a  suggestion  had 
been  made  to  me ;  but  it  was  the  first  time  that  I 
seriously  entertained  it,  and  resolved  to  make,  sooner 
or  later,  an  effort  to  comply  with  it.  I  am  by  no  means 
sure,  however,  that  the  effort  is  worth  making,  or  that 
I  shall  succeed  in  jotting  down  anything  worthy  of  re- 
membrance. But  I  may  at  least  occupy  a  leisure  hour, 
from  day  to  day,  pleasantly  and  not  unprofitably,  in 
living  over  again  some  of  the  scenes  through  which  I 
have  passed,  abroad  or  at  home,  and  in  bringing  back  to 
my  remembrance,  partly  by  the  aid  of  old  journals  and 
letters,  some  of  the  eminent  persons  whom  I  have  met 
more  or  less  intimately,  in  other  lands  or  in  my  own, 
but  so  few  of  whom  I  can  meet  again  on  earth. 

I  prefer  to  begin  with  those  whom  I  have  known  in 
foreign  countries,  because  they  are  fewer  in  number 


2  A   FRAGMENT 

and  my  account  of  them  will  thus  be  briefer;  and 
when  I  have  once  dealt  with  these,  I  shall  feel  that  I 
have  finished  one  part  of  my  story,  and  perhaps  be 
more  ready  to  turn  to  the  other  and  longer  part. 

Crossing  the  Atlantic  for  the  first  time  in  April,  1847, 
I  visited  London  with  some  peculiar  advantages  for 
seeing  the  English  celebrities  of  that  day.  I  was  a 
member  of  Congress,  and  during  the  six  or  seven  years 
I  had  been  at  Washington  I  had  served  for  a  part  of 
the  time  on  the  Committee  of  Foreign  Affairs.  I  had 
thus  been  brought  into  official  as  well  as  personal 
association  with  members  of  the  Diplomatic  Corps  in 
Washington,  more  than  one  of  whom,  without  solicita- 
tion, gave  me  letters  of  introduction.  Mr.  Webster, 
too,  on  learning  that  I  was  going  abroad,  sent  me 
several  valuable  letters  to  friends  in  England ;  and  Mr. 
Everett,  who  had  recently  returned  from  there  after  a 
four-years  residence  as  our  Minister  in  London,  sent 
me  a  number  of  introductions  of  the  most  desirable 
character.  Meantime  Mr.  Bancroft,  who  was  then  our 
Minister  in  England,  was  a  personal  though  not  at  that 
time  a  political  friend,  and  he  was  full  of  the  kindest 
attentions  on  my  arrival. 

My  very  first  day  in  London  was  one  to  be  marked 
with  white  chalk.  Calling  without  delay  to  see  the 
Lyells,  whom  I  had  known  intimately  in  Boston  while 
Sir  Charles  was  delivering  his  first  course  of  Lowell 
Institute  Lectures, J  he  said  at  once  to  me :  "  I  cannot 
let  you  sit  down  an  instant.  You  must  go  with  me 

1  Lady  Lyell  was  a  far  removed  connection  of  mine,  and  we  soon 
resolved  to  shorten  the  distance  and  count  ourselves  cousins  for  life. 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  6 

without  a  moment's  delay  to  the  Royal  British  Institu- 
tion. FARADAY  delivers  the  closing  lecture  of  his 
course  in  a  few  minutes ;  and  you  may  never  have 
another  opportunity  of  hearing  him."  So  off  we  hurried 
to  Albemarle  Street,  where  we  found  Faraday  already 
on  the  platform,  just  about  to  commence  one  of  those 
charming  lectures  on  Chemistry,  or  Electro-Chemistry, 
which  gave  so  much  delight  and  instruction  to  all  who 
heard  him.  I  cannot  venture,  after  such  a  lapse  of 
time,  to  give  the  precise  topics  of  his  lecture,  —  unhap- 
pily, I  made  no  notes  of  it ;  but  I  remember  well  the 
sweetness  and  the  power  of  his  manner  and  delivery, 
and  the  exquisite  ease  and  grace  of  his  experiments. 
Tyndall,  in  his  memoir  of  Faraday,  says :  "  Taking 
him  for  all  in  all,  I  think  it  will  be  conceded  that 
Michael  Faraday  was  the  greatest  experimental  phi- 
losopher the  world  has  ever  seen." 

Like  so  many  other  really  great  men,  however,  he 
seemed  to  me  one  of  the  most  modest  and  simple. 
Declining  all  distinctions  and  honors,  and  remaining,  as 
he  said  he  would,  "  plain  Michael  Faraday  to  the  last," 
he  has  impressed  that  name  upon  the  pages  of  science 
so  deeply  that  it  can  never  be  effaced.  Lyell  in- 
troduced me  to  him  after  the  lecture  was  over,  and 
nothing  could  have  been  more  kind  or  cordial  than 
his  reception  of  me.  His  whole  air  and  address  were 
those  of  one  who  had  rather  been  made  to  feel  more 
humble,  than  more  proud,  by  his  successful  researches 
into  the  realms  of  Nature,  and  who  was  rather  awed 
by  the  wonders  which  baffled  his  inquiries  than  intoxi- 
cated by  the  success  of  his  discoveries. 


4  A   FRAGMENT 

Faraday  had  a  distinguished  audience  that  day ;  and 
I  remember  being  introduced  to  Dean  Milman  among 
others,  and  to  Dr.  Edward  Stanley,  then  Bishop  of 
Norwich,  the  father  of  my  lamented  friend  the  Dean 
of  Westminster.  Lyell,  Faraday,  Milman,  and  Stanley 
were  a  goodly  company  of  notables  to  have  been  per- 
sonally associated  with  in  a  single  hour  of  my  first 
morning  in  London. 

But  though  the  audience  was  a  distinguished  one, 
it  was  by  no  means  numerous.  The  little  theatre  of 
the  British  Institution  was,  indeed,  well  filled,  but  it 
could  hardly  accommodate  more  than  a  few  hundreds ; 
and  I  could  not  help  reverting  to  the  scene  I  had  wit- 
nessed only  a  few  evenings  before  I  sailed  from  Boston, 
when  I  was  one  of  fifteen  hundred  or  two  thousand 
persons  crowding  every  seat  and  every  corner  of  the 
hall  of  the  old  Masonic  Temple  to  hear  a  lecture  on  the 
glaciers  by  Louis  Agassiz.  Nor  did  I  fail  to  remember, 
before  I  left  the  British  Institution,  that  its  earliest 
and  most  effective  promoter,  if  not  its  absolute  founder, 
was  a  native  of  my  own  country  and  of  my  own  State, 

—  Benjamin  Thompson,  afterward  known  to  all   the 
world  as  Count  Rumford,  of  whom  an  admirable  bio- 
graphy has  been  written  by  my  friend  Dr.  George  E. 
Ellis,  and  published  under  the  auspices  of  the  American 
Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences:  a  man  whose  great 
services  —  military,  civil,  and  still  more  philanthropic 

—  in    Bavaria,  and   whose   eminent   contributions    to 
science  and  the  practical  arts,  have  entitled  him  to  a 
celebrity  only  second  to  that  of  Franklin  in  our  own 
land,  and  not  inferior  to  that  of  Tyndall  or  Faraday  on 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  0 

the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  But  Rumford  was  of 
another  generation,  and  does  not  come  within  the 
scope  of  these  reminiscences. 

A  Sunday  now  intervened,  of  which  it  is  enough  to 
say  that  I  spent  a  large  portion  of  it  in  attending  a 
service  at  Westminster  Abbey  and  in  lingering  among 
its  memorials  of  the  mighty  dead. 

On  Monday  I  began  to  make  use  of  my  notes  of 
introduction,  and  one  of  my  earliest  calls  was  upon 
Sir  ROBERT  PEEL.  Stopping  at  his  door  in  Whitehall 
Gardens  in  a  somewhat  shabby  equipage,  I  remember 
well  the  peremptory  tone  in  which  I  was  told  by  his 
servant,  in  answer  to  my  inquiry,,  that  Sir  Robert  was 
not  at  home.  But  I  remember,  too,  how  speedily  that 
tone  was  changed  when  I  handed  him  my  card  with 
the  note  of  introduction,  on  the  back  of  which  was 
written,  in  his  own  clear  and  well-remembered  chi- 
rography,  the  name  of  Edward  Everett.  "  Oh,  Mr. 
Everett,  —  I  beg  pardon,  sir,"  exclaimed  the  footman  ; 
"  if  you  will  wait  a  moment,  I  will  take  in  the  letter 
and  card  and  see  if  Sir  Robert  may  not  have  returned." 
In  another  minute,  the  welcome  sound  was  heard,  — 
"  Sir  Robert  is  at  home,  and  will  be  very  glad  to  see 
you."  This  great  statesman,  who  only  a  year  or  two 
before  had  been  Prime  Minister,  was  now  in  retirement, 
—  if,  indeed,  the  position  of  an  active  and  leading 
member  of  the  House  of  Commons  can  ever  be 
called  retirement.  But  he  had  no  other  official  posi- 
tion, and  was  free  from  the  absorbing  labors  and  over- 
whelming responsibilities  of  a  Premier.  The  name  of 


C  A    FRAGMENT 

Mr.  Everett,  for  whom  Sir  Robert  had  a  great  regard, 
secured  for  me  a  reception  which  I  could  not  otherwise 
have  enjoyed,  and  I  was  soon  disabused  of  the  impres- 
sion I  had  carried  with  me  from  hearing  so  often  of 
"  the  proverbial  coldness  of  Sir  Robert  Peel."  After  a 
few  moments'  conversation  about  Everett  and  about 
American  affairs,  he  said  to  me :  "  You  find  me  en- 
gaged at  this  moment  in  filling  out  cards,"  —  for  he  was 
doing  this  with  his  own  pen,  and  had  a  pile  of  them  on 
the  table  at  which  he  was  sitting,  —  "  for  an  exhibition 
of  my  pictures  next  Saturday.  I  must  write  your 
name  on  one  of  them,  and  you  must  come.  You  will 
find  the  pictures  worth  seeing,  and,  besides,  you  will 
meet  many  of  our  best  artists  and  not  a  few  of  our 
most  distinguished  persons.  But  where  are  you  going 
to-night?  Have  you  been  to  the  House  of  Commons? 
There  is  a  debate  in  which  you  cannot  fail  to  be  in- 
terested." I  told  him  at  once  that  I  had  already  made 
arrangements  to  go  with  Mr.  Bancroft,  who  had  kindly 
proposed  to  take  me  with  him  to  the  Diplomatic  Box. 
" I  am  glad  of  that,"  said  he ;  "I  shall  know  where  to 
find  you."  And  so  I  took  my  leave,  and  proceeded 
on  my  round  of  visits. 

At  an  early  hour  of  the  evening  I  went  with  Mr. 
Bancroft  to  the  House  of  Commons,  and  after  some 
preliminary  business  had  been  gone  through,  the  Edu- 
cation Bill  was  taken  up.  Several  of  the  members 
came  out  from  their  seats  to  talk  with  Bancroft,  and 
one  of  them  —  Sir  William  Molesworth,  if  I  remember 
right  —  took  him  off  to  their  refreshment-room  for  a 
cup  of  tea,  leaving  me  alone.  Just  then  I  observed 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  7 

Sir  Robert,  who  was  at  the  farther  end  of  the  House, 
lifting  his  eye-glass  and  looking  intently  toward  me. 
He  presently  rose,  and  marching  in  his  somewhat 
deliberate  and  stately  way  the  whole  length  of  the 
chamber,  came  up  and  took  the  seat  next  to  me  which 
Bancroft  had  left.  His  conversation  was  charming,  as 
he  recalled  some  of  the  incidents  of  his  long  service  in 
the  Commons  and  pointed  out  to  me  the  seats  of  some 
of  the  older  glories  of  the  House,  as  well  as  of  some  of 
those  most  distinguished  at  the  moment.  He  had  then 
been  in  Parliament  almost  as  long  as  I  had  lived,  — 
having  been  first  elected  in  the  year  I  was  born  (1809), 
and  having  served  with  almost  all  the  men  best  known 
to  the  modern  history  of  England,  except  Pitt  and  Fox, 
who  died  three  years  before  he  was  old  enough  to  be 
chosen.  During  the  half-hour  he  remained  at  my  side, 
several  members  of  note  had  entered  into  the  debate, 
among  them  Mr.  Roebuck.  But  suddenly  "  the  Right 
Honorable  member  for  Edinburgh  "  was  announced  by 
the  Speaker,  when  Sir  Robert  said  quietly  but  quickly 
to  me,  "  You  must  excuse  me  now ;  Macaulay  has  the 
floor,  and  I  never  fail  to  attend  closely  to  what  he 
says."  And  so  he  marched  back  to  his  seat. 

A  night  or  two  afterward  I  was  again  at  the  House 
of  Commons,  when  the  debate  was  closed  long  after 
midnight  by  Lord  John  Russell  and  Sir  Robert  himself. 
Sir  Robert  spoke  for  an  hour  and  a  half  in  a  masterly 
manner,  fulfilling  all  my  expectations,  and  impressing 
me  deeply  with  his  power  and  persuasiveness  as  a 
debater.  With  a  clear  and  telling  voice,  and  a  figure 
of  striking  dignity ;  without  studied  rhetoric  or  flights 


g  A   FRAGMENT 

of  fancy ;  simple,  earnest,  and  at  times  almost  impas- 
sioned,—  he  seemed  peculiarly  fitted  fora  parliamen- 
tary leader.  I  know  not  how  it  may  have  been  with 
him  on  other  occasions,  but  on  that  night  he  exhibited 
hardly  anything  of  the  hesitation  which  was  then  one 
of  the  proverbial  attributes  of  English  speakers.  His 
course  upon  the  Corn  Laws  the  year  before  had  not 
only  cost  him  his  place  at  the  head  of  the  government, 
but  had  broken  up  his  party  and  made  many  of  his  old 
friends  look  coldly  and  even  angrily  at  him.  But  he 
bore  himself  as  bravely  as  if  he  were  still  the  idol  of 
the  hour,  and  commanded  the  unbroken  attention  of  a 
crowded  house. 

On  the  Saturday  following,  I  was  at  the  exhibition 
of  Sir  Robert's  pictures,  and  found  him  surrounded 
with  all  that  was  most  distinguished  in  art  or  science, 
in  literature,  in  the  Church,  and  in  the  State.  There 
were  Landseer  and  Leslie  and  Turner  and  Sir  William 
Ross,  and  Eastlake  and  Stansfield  and  Westmacott. 
There  were  Hallam  and  Rogers  and  Faraday  and 
Buckland  and  Dickens ;  there  were  Bunsen  and  Ban- 
croft of  the  diplomatic  corps,  and  Lord  John  Russell 
and  Sir  James  Graham,  and  the  Duke  of  Cambridge 
and  the  great  Duke  of  Wellington,  and  I  know  not 
how  many  more  celebrated  men.  And  there  on  the 
walls  were  Sir  Joshua's  Dr.  Johnson,  and  Rubens's 
Chapeau  de  Faille,  and  a  wonderful  Hobbema,  and  an 
exquisite  Cuyp,  and  Backhuysens  and  Vanderveldes 
and  Wouvermans  and  Gerard  Douws  and  Metzus  and 
Mieris  and  Jan  Steens,  until  one's  eye  ached  from 
gazing  intently  on  brilliant  color  and  beautiful  design, 


OF    AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  9 

and  sought  relief  in  the  pleasant  chat  of  those  who 
were  fairer  even  than  the  pictures,  —  for  not  a  few 
brilliant  women  were  of  the  party.  The  pictures,  too, 
I  was  to  see  again  a  fortnight  afterwards  at  a  party 
given  to  Sir  Harry  Smith,  the  hero  of  Scinde,  who  had 
just  returned  home;  and  they  were  not  less  beautiful 
by  candle-light  than  by  daylight.  Sir  Robert  had 
invited  me  to  dine  at  the  banquet  which  preceded 
this  evening  party,  and  soon  afterwards  also  sent  me 
a  card  for  the  annual  dinner  of  the  Royal  Academy ; 
but  engagements  prevented  me  from  accepting  either 
invitation,  and  I  left  London  never  to  meet  him  again. 
It  was  only  three  years  afterward  that  he  fell  from  his 
horse  on  Constitution  Hill,  and  died  at  only  sixty-two, 
leaving  a  name  which  will  be  associated  with  as  fine 
an  example  of  pure  and  Christian  statesmanship  as 
has  ever  adorned  the  history  of  his  country. 

The  day  after  my  first  call  on  Sir  Robert  Peel  I  drove 
to  Apsley  House,  and  left  a  parcel  and  note,  with  which 
Mr.  Everett  had  intrusted  me,  for  the  Duke  of  WEL- 
LINGTON, leaving  my  own  card  also,  as  the  Duke  had 
gone  to  the  Horse  Guards.  The  same  evening  Lord 
St.  Germans  took  me  to  the  House  of  Lords,  and  as 
he  took  care  to  be  there  before  the  Lord  Chan- 
cellor had  taken  his  seat  on  the  woolsack,  he  in- 
troduced me  to  some  distinguished  peers,  and  among 
others  to  the  great  Duke.  On  my  name  being  men- 
tioned to  him,  he  replied :  "  Oh,  yes,  Mr.  Winthrop, 
you  did  me  the  favor  to  bring  me  a  note  and  parcel 
from  my  friend  Everett.  You  must  come  and  dine 


10  A.   FRAGMENT 

with  me.    Will   you   come  to-morrow  and   meet  the 
Directors  of  the  Ancient   Music,  and  go  to  the  con- 
cert with  us?"     The  Duke,  as  is  well  known,  had  a 
passion  for  ancient  music,  and  indeed  for  music  of  all 
kinds.     His  father,  the  Earl  of  Mornington,  was  a  com- 
poser, and  several  of  his  compositions  are  to  be  found 
among  the  chants  and  hymns  of  the  Church  of  England. 
The  Duke  himself  composed  at  least  one  chant,  which 
I  have  often  heard  sung  at  Trinity  Church,  Boston. 
The  Ancient  Music  Association  was  one  of  the  oldest 
musical   institutions   in   London,  and   its   directors  at 
that  time  included  Prince  Albert  as  well  as  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  and  others  of  the  nobility.     The  direc- 
tors were  accustomed  to  dine  at  one  another's  houses, 
and  proceed  thence  to  the  concert-hall.      That  night 
they  were  to  dine  with  the  Duke.     But,  alas !  a  dinner- 
party had  been  made  for  me  on  that  same  evening  by 
Lord    Morpeth,   afterward    seventh   Earl   of    Carlisle, 
whom   I   had   known   at    Washington,  and   who   had 
asked  me  to  fix  the  day ;   and  I  was  not  yet  familiar 
enough  with  English  etiquette  to  understand  that  the 
Duke's   invitations,  like  those   of  royalty,  were    con- 
sidered as  commands,  or  at  least  as  supplying  ample 
apologies  for  breaking  previous  engagements.     And  so, 
in  the  simplicity  of  my  heart,  I  told  the   Duke  that 
Lord  Morpeth  had  made  a  dinner  for  me  that  evening, 
from  which  I  could  hardly  excuse  myself.     He  took  it 
most  amiably,  and  added,  "  Well,  we  must  fix  another 
time."     The  death  of  his  brother,  Lord  Cowley,  was  an- 
nounced from  Paris  not  long  after,  and  he  suspended 
all  ceremonious  company.      But  if  I  lost  my  dinner 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  11 

with  the  Duke,  I  tried  at  least  to  console  myself  by  the 
reflection  that  I  was  probably  one  of  the  few  Americans 
—  if  not  the  only  one  —  who  had  ever  had  the  oppor- 
tunity to  decline  to  dine  with  him. 

It  was  not  the  only  dinner  which  I  regretted  being 
obliged  to  decline  during  that  visit  to  London.  Sir 
Robert  Peel's  invitation  to  meet  the  Royal  Academy, 
Bunsen's  to  meet  the  Royal  Literary  Fund  Society, 
Sir  John  Herschel's  to  meet  the  Royal  Astronomical 
Society,  and  the  Duke  of  Richmond's  to  meet  the 
Royal  Agricultural  Society,  come  back  at  times  to  my 
memory  among  lost  opportunities,  resulting  from  the 
most  provoking  conflicts  of  engagements.  But  that 
lost  dinner  at  the  Duke's  was  my  first  and  deepest 
disappointment. 

A  few  evenings  later,  however  (Monday,  April  26), 
I  had  an  ample  compensation.  With  an  admission  to 
stand  on  the  steps  of  the  throne,  I  heard  the  Duke 
make  one  of  the  best  and  most  memorable  speeches 
of  his  life.  The  debate  was  on  permanent  or  limited 
enlistments  in  the  army.  Several  old  generals  partici- 
pated, as  experts,  in  the  debate,  —  Lord  Strafford, 
Lord  Combermere,  the  Duke  of  Richmond,  and  others 
who  had  distinguished  themselves  on  the  Peninsula  or 
at  Waterloo.  Lord  Grey,  Lord  Lansdowne,  Lord 
Stanley,  and  Lord  Brougham,  too,  were  all  earnest 
and  eloquent  in  the  discussion,  on  one  side  or  the 
other.  But  when  the  Duke  rose  from  his  seat  on 
the  cross-benches,  there  was  a  silence  which  no  one 
else  had  commanded.  In  a  full  suit  of  black,  with  his 
habitual  white  cravat  fastened  behind  with  a  shining 


12  A   FRAGMENT 

silver  clasp,  made  conspicuous  by  the  stoop  of  old  age, 
and  with  hair  as  white  as  the  cravat  and  as  shining  as 
the  silver  clasp,  without  gesture,  without  studied  grace 
of  attitude  or  of  elocution,  he  made  every  word  tell 
like  a  shot  from  a  cannon.  Beginning  with  a  simple 
expression  of  his  desire  and  determination  to  support 
her  Majesty's  Government,  and,  as  her  Majesty's 
Government  (for  this  was  a  favorite  phrase  of  his)  had 
introduced  it,  to  support  this  bill,  —  he  proceeded  to 
speak  in  the  most  interesting  and  most  emphatic 
manner  of  the  importance  of  retaining  old  soldiers  in 
the  army.  He  described  some  particular  triumph 
which  had  recently  been  achieved  in  India,  and  then 
said :  "  I  ask  you,  my  Lords,  whether  such  a  feat  could 
have  been  performed  under  such  circumstances  except 
by  old  soldiers.  It  would  have  been  impossible.  Bear 
in  mind,"  he  continued,  "  the  conduct  of  the  Emperor 
Napoleon  with  respect  to  old  soldiers;  remember  the 
manner  in  which  he  employed  them ;  recollect,  too, 
how  much  they  are  prized  by  every  Power  all  over 
the  world,  —  and  then  I  will  once  more  entreat  your 
Lordships  never  to  consent  to  any  measure  which 
would  deprive  her  Majesty's  service  of  old  and  expe- 
rienced men ;  and  thus  pave  the  way  for  disasters 
which  assuredly  would  follow  when  the  army  should 
come  to  be  employed  in  war." 

So  powerful  was  this  plea  for  old  soldiers,  coming 
from  the  lips  of  the  hero  of  so  many  battles,  that  the 
Duke  came  very  near  overturning  the  measure  he 
had  proposed  to  vote  for.  The  bill  would  have  been 
in  jeopardy  (to  say  the  least)  had  not  an  amendment 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  13 

been  introduced  allowing  the  re-enlistment  of  the 
ten-years  men,  and  counting  their  back  service  toward 
establishing  their  right  to  a  pension. 

No  scene  in  either  branch  of  Parliament  could  have 
been  so  interesting  as  that  of  the  aged  Duke,  thus 
pleading  the  cause  of  old  soldiers  and  citing  the  exam- 
ple of  the  great  Emperor  whom  he  had  defeated  at 
Waterloo.  It  was  said  at  the  time  to  be  one  of  the 
best  and  longest  speeches  he  had  ever  made,  and  I 
was  congratulated  on  having  happened  to  hear  it. 
I  certainly  congratulated  myself. 

It  was  once  common  to  hear  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton spoken  of  as  a  mere  soldier.  I  remember  how 
emphatically  Daniel  Webster  repelled  this  idea  at 
my  father's  dinner- table,  more  than  sixty  years  ago, 
when  the  Duke  had  just  been  made  Prime  Minister. 
"  A  mere  soldier  !  "  said  Webster  ;  "  there  's  no  abler 
diplomatist  or  statesman  living  than  Arthur,  Duke 
of  Wellington.  He  makes  no  pretensions  to  being 
an  orator,  but  both  his  written  despatches  and  his 
reported  speeches  prove  him  adequate  to  every  emer- 
gency of  peace  as  well  as  of  war;  and  there  is  no 
man  in  England  more  capable  of  conducting  the 
affairs  of  government  with  wisdom  and  efficiency." 

Walter  Scott  expressed  the  same  opinion,  after 
meeting  the  Duke  in  Paris  in  1815,  declaring  him 
"  a  great  soldier  and  a  great  statesman,  —  the  greatest 
of  each ; "  and  saying  of  him  very  nearly  what  Erskine 
wrote  to  Washington,  that  he  was  the  only  man  in 
whose  presence  he  was  awed  and  abashed. 

Before   I   left   London,   I    had   not   only   dined   in 


14  A    FRAGMENT 

company  with  him  at  Lord  Ashburton's,  and  conversed 
with  him  for  some  minutes  at  the  Queen's  Ball,  but 
had  spent  an  hour  at  Apsley  House,  where  he  had 
kindly  made  an  appointment  with  a  lady  whose  great 
benefactions  subsequently  led  the  Queen  to  adorn 
the  peerage  with  her  name,  to  receive  her,  with  one 
other  friend  and  myself,  and  show  us  the  Waterloo 
Gallery  in  person. 

The  Duke  received  Miss  Burdett-Coutts  at  the 
carriage  door ;  and  under  his  lead  we  passed  up  the 
grand  staircase,  with  Canova's  heroic  statue  of  Napo- 
leon at  its  foot,  and  proceeded  through  the  rooms. 
We  had  even  a  glimpse  of  the  one  with  the  little 
iron  bedstead  on  which  the  Duke  habitually  slept,  — 
giving  as  a  reason  why  he  had  adopted  a  bed  not  big 
enough  for  any  one  to  turn  himself  on,  that  when  a 
man  begins  to  turn  at  all  in  bed,  it  is  time  for  him  to 
turn  out. 

On  some  of  the  walls  we  saw  several  portraits  of 
Napoleon  at  different  stages  of  his  career,  but  I  think 
not  one  of  the  Duke  himself.  A  new  picture  had 
recently  been  sent  to  him  by  I  forget  what  artist, 
and  it  was  still  lying  on  the  floor.  "That's  his 
idea,"  said  the  Duke,  "of  the  battle  of  Waterloo." 
And  then  pointing  to  a  portrait  by  Sir  Thomas 
Lawrence,  I  believe,  he  said  :  "  You  see  that  portrait 
which  has  been  injured  on  the  corner.  It  is  the 
first  Lady  Lyndhurst,  who  was  very  handsome.  The 
mob  once  threw  stones  at  me  through  the  windows, 

C  7 

but  they  only  hurt  the  pictures."  And  then  he 
showed  us  the  iron  shutters  which  he  had  put  up  for 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  15 

protecting  himself  and  his  pictures  in  future,  and 
which  he  never  would  allow  to  be  removed  as  long 
as  he  lived.  He  had  a  charming  arrangement,  too, 
of  sliding  mirrors  over  the  windows  of  his  grand 
drawing-room,  so  as  to  render  it  more  brilliant  at 
night ;  but  his  aged  arm  not  being  quite  equal  to  this 
effort,  he  appealed  to  me  to  aid  him  in  exhibiting 
this  contrivance  to  the  ladies.  After  pointing  out  to 
us  several  large  paintings,  he  quietly  remarked, 
"They  are  only  copies,  however;  I  returned  the 
originals  to  the  Spanish  government.1  Here  is  one 
small  original,  though,  which  is  very  charming,"  said 
he.  "  Joseph  Bonaparte  carried  it  about  with  him 
in  his  carriage  at  Vittoria,  and  I  had  the  good  fortune 
to  find  it  there  after  he  had  fled."  And  then  he 
showed  us  a  recent  bust  of  his  beautiful  daughter- 
in-law,  the  Marchioness  of  Douro  (now  Duchess 
Dowager  of  Wellington),  and  pointed  out  with  a 
pencil,  which  I  feared  would  leave  its  mark  upon  the 
marble,  exactly  where  it  failed  to  do  full  justice  to 
the  original.  Still  again,  he  showed  us  the  equestrian 
statuettes  of  Napoleon  and  himself  in  silver  by  Count 
d'Orsay,  and  commented  critically  on  their  execution. 
Finally,  he  took  us  into  his  sanctum,  —  his  working, 
room,  —  where  his  despatch  boxes  and  his  books  were 
piled  up  in  every  direction.  The  carpenters  were 
engaged  at  the  very  moment  in  putting  up  new  fix- 
tures. " You  see,"  said  he,  "I  am  obliged  to  have 

1  An  unscrupulous  man  might  have  retained  them,  as,  though  Spanish 
property,  they  had  been  stolen  by  the  French  and  then  captured  by  the 
Duke. 


16  A   FRAGMENT 

more  shelves  for  all  these  huge  Parliamentary  Keports. 
They  will  soon  out/olio  us  out  of  our  houses  and  homes." 
I  had  never  heard  that  most  significant  phrase  before ; 
I  could  not  find  it  in  any  dictionary.  It  may  have 
been  used  then  for  the  first  time ;  at  any  rate,  it  came 
naturally  and  characteristically  from  one  who  had 
known  so  well  how  to  outflank  his  enemies. 

Before  leaving  the  room,  the  Duke  said  to  Miss 
BurdettrCoutts,  "  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  your 
opera-box  this  evening  ?  "  She  replied  that  it  would 
be  entirely  at  his  service,  as  she  was  going  into  the 
country.  "  Then  write  me  an  order  for  it  at  my  desk, 
if  you  please."  It  was  while  she  was  writing  this 
order,  that  relying  on  the  Duke's  being  a  little  deaf, 
I  whispered  to  her  that  if  I  were  not  afraid  of  annoy- 
ing him  I  would  ask  the  Duke  to  write  his  name  for 
me,  while  she  was  writing  her  name  for  him.  "  What 's 
that  you  were  saying  ? "  he  exclaimed ;  and  on  my 
confession,  he  added,  "  With  all  my  heart,"  and  pro- 
ceeded to  write  "  Wellington  "  for  me  on  a  scrap  of 
paper,  dated  May  29,  1847. 

Five  years  later  the  Duke  died,  and  England  was 
mourning  for  him  almost  at  the  same  moment  at  which 
we  were  mourning  for  Webster. 

In  the  years  1824-25  (while  I  was  in  college),  four 
young  Englishmen  visited  the  United  States  together, 
all  of  whom  had  distinguished  careers,  and  one  of 
whom  became  Prime  Minister.  They  were  EDWARD 
STANLEY,  then  Mr.  Stanley,  afterward  Lord  Stanley, 
and  ultimately  fourteenth  Earl  of  Derby ;  HENRY 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  17 

LABOUCHERE,  afterward  Lord  Taunton  ;  JOHN  STUART- 
WORTLEY,  afterward  second  Lord  Wharncliffe ;  and 
JOHN  EVELYN  DENISON,  afterward  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Commons  and  Viscount  Ossington.  Webster, 
who  knew  them  all,  as  I  subsequently  did,  had  given 
me  letters  to  Denison  and  Lord  Stanley;  and  I  had 
hardly  returned  from  leaving  rny  letter  and  card  at  the 
latter's  house  in  St.  James  Square  before  a  note 
reached  me  from  him,  expressing  his  great  regard  for 
Mr.  Webster,  and  fixing  an  evening  for  my  dining 
with  him.  It  was  one  of  my  first  ceremonious  banquets 
in  London,  and  I  can  recall  the  name  of  no  one 
present,  except  myself,  who  did  not  rejoice  in  some 
title  of  nobility.  The  Duke  of  Richmond,  the  Marquis 
of  Exeter,  the  Earl  of  Desart  with  his  then  young  and 
beautiful  countess,  Lord  Redesdale,  and  others,  made 
up  a  good  representation  of  the  Conservative  party. 
As  I  was  the  only  Commoner,  my  turn  came  last  in 
going  down  to  dinner  ;  but  I  found  a  seat  reserved  for 
me  next  to  the  Duke  of  Richmond  and  Lady  Stanley, 
and  I  could  not  have  been  more  agreeably  placed. 
Before  the  ladies  had  retired,  Lord  Stanley  called  to 
me  across  the  table  to  inquire  whether  I  had  heard 
lately  from  his  friend  Webster,  and  asked  me  to  join 
him  in  drinking  the  latter's  health.  This  was  the  best 
introduction  J  could  have  had  to  the  rest,  and  secured 
me  cordial  attentions. 

A  few  evenings  afterward,  I  heard  Stanley  speak  for 
more  than  an  hour  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  was 
fully  able  to  understand  and  appreciate  the  great 
celebrity  he  had  acquired  as  an  orator.  Few  English 


18  A   FRAGMENT 

statesmen,  indeed,  had  enjoyed  greater  celebrity  for 
eloquence,  at  so  early  an  age,  while  he  was  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  When  I  heard  him  first,  he  was 
by  no  means  old  ;  but  sharp  and  severe  attacks  of  the 
hereditary  malady  of  so  many  old  English  families 
had  somewhat  subdued  his  fiery  tone,  and  the  House 
of  Peers  was  not  altogether  a  field  for  the  Hotspur 
quality  which  he  had  exhibited  in  the  Commons  or  on 
the  hustings.  But  there  was  a  rich  melody  in  his 
tones,  and  a  faultless  finish  in  his  phrases  and  periods, 
and  a  masterly  arrangement  and  treatment  of  his 
topics,  which  commanded  the  deepest  attention  and 
admiration.  I  heard  him  thirteen  years,  and  again 
nearly  twenty  years,  afterward,  when  the  fire  was 
burning  still  lower,  and  within  a  twelvemonth  of  his 
death.  But  his  singular  charm  of  tone  and  thought 
and  illustration  and  manner  were  still  unimpaired. 

He  was  a  fine  classical  scholar ;  and  the  translation 
into  English  blank  verse  of  Homer's  Iliad,  published 
by  him  a  few  years  before  his  death,  and  which  had 
been  the  diversion  of  his  leisure  hours,  will  secure  him 
an  enviable  remembrance  in  literary  history.  The  late 
George  Ticknor,  no  mean  critic,  said  to  me  one  day, 
"Have  you  read  Lord  Derby's  Homer?"  And  on  my 
replying  that  I  was  reading  it  at  the  moment,  he  con- 
tinued :  "  Well,  I  have  read  almost  the  whole  of  it,  and 
have  compared  the  most  noted  passages  both  with  the 
original  Greek,  and  with  Pope  and  Chapman  and  other 
translators,  and  I  like  it  better  than  any.  I  do  not 
believe  Wordsworth  could  have  done  it  so  well,  if  he 
had  tried  ;  and  some  of  the  most  striking  passages  seem 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  19 

to  me  rendered  just  as  Milton  himself  would  have 
rendered  them  had  he  undertaken  the  work."  Not 
long  after,  I  asked  an  eminent  Greek  professor  of  Har- 
vard University  (Sophocles)  whether  he  had  read  it, 
and  he  replied :  "  Every  word  of  it,  and  I  think  it  the 
most  faithful  to  the  original  of  all  the  English  transla- 
tions." Such  tributes  —  one  from  a  master  in  English, 
and  the  other  from  a  master  in  Greek  —  make  up  a 
judgment  which  can  hardly  be  appealed  from  or 
reversed. 

Lord  Derby  died  at  only  seventy  years  of  age,  in 
1869,  leaving  a  son,  the  recently  deceased  fifteenth 
earl  of  that  name,  who  more  than  once  discharged  the 
duties  of  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs  with 
signal  ability,  and  who,  with  more  than  his  father's 
practical  wisdom,  though  with  less  of  his  eloquence, 
added  new  lustre  to  a  historic  title.  I  saw  much  of 
him  during  a  visit  he  paid  to  Washington  when  I  was 
Speaker.  In  later  years  I  was  repeatedly  his  guest  in 
London,  and  he  sometimes  favored  me  with  letters 
upon  public  affairs. 

I  had  no  letter  to  Lord  BROUGHAM,  but  no  one  could 
be  a  week  in  London  society  without  seeing  him,  or  a 
night  in  the  House  of  Lords  without  hearing  him.  I 
may  add,  that  no  one  who  had  ever  seen  or  ever  heard 
him  would  be  in  any  danger  of  forgetting  how  he 
looked  or  how  he  spoke.  That  peculiar  "  Paul  Pry  " 
figure  and  physiognomy,  that  upturned  feature  ever 
on  the  scent  of  something,  that  quick  nervous  gait  with 
the  glaring  stripes  on  his  habitual  trousers,  could  never 


20  A   FRAGMENT 

be  mistaken.  I  met  him  twice  at  the  table  of  Lord 
Lyndhurst,  on  two  successive  visits  to  England  at  an 
interval  of  nearly  thirteen  years,  but  the  lapse  of  time 
had  left  its  mark  upon  everything  and  everybody 
except  Brougham.  He  was  the  same  restless,  inquisi- 
tive, loquacious,  almost  garrulous,  person  in  1860  as  in 
1847,  full  of  experience,  full  of  information,  full  of 
ambition,  eager  for  applause,  eager  for  controversy, 
never  weary  of  work,  never  tired  of  talk,  and  of  whom 
it  might  be  doubted  whether  he  was  most  anxious  to 
shine  in  social  or  in  public  life,  —  as  a  statesman,  or  as 
a  ladies'  man. 

I  heard  him  make  a  long  and  eloquent  speech  on 
the  limitation  by  statute  of  the  hours  of  labor  to  ten 
hours,  or  it  may  have  been  to  eight  hours.  In  the 
course  of  it  he  alluded  to  the  condition  and  example 
of  the  United  States ;  and  as  he  pronounced  the  name 
of  our  country,  he  paused  for  an  instant  and  gathered 
himself  up  for  one  of  those  long  and  involved  paren- 
theses in  which  he  delighted  to  indulge,  and  which 
he  began  somewhat  as  follows :  "  The  United  States, 
my  Lords,  —  a  country  for  which  I  once  had  some 
respect,  and  of  which  I  should  be  glad,  if  it  were  in 
my  power,  to  speak  respectfully  at  this  moment,  but 
which  has  so  outraged  the  sense  of  the  civilized  world 
by" — I  forget  by  what,  but  it  was  undoubtedly  by 
something  connected  with  the  Mexican  War,  which  was 
then  raging,  or  with  the  annexation  of  Texas,  or  with 
the  toleration  of  slavery. 

So  violent  was  his  tone  toward  this  country,  that 
one  or  two  peers  present  to  whom  I  was  personally 


OP  AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  21 

known  and  by  whom  I  was  recognized,  —  the  late  Lord 
Clarendon  for  one,  —  expressed  to  me  a  deep  regret 
that  I  should  have  been  there  to  hear  such  an  out- 
break, but  then  added  that  there  was  a  meaning  to 
it  which  I  ought  to  understand.  He  proceeded  to 
tell  me  that  a  beautiful  American  lady,  for  whom 
Brougham  had  a  special  admiration,  had  promised  to 
come  down  to  the  House  of  Lords  that  evening  to  hear 
him  speak,  and  that  he  had  waited  a  considerable  time 
to  conduct  her  to  the  ladies'  gallery ;  but  a  headache 
or  other  indisposition  had  prevented  her  from  coming, 
and  so  Brougham  had  vented  his  impatience  and 
disappointment  in  this  parenthetical  attack  upon  her 
country.  The  lady,  not  having  been  there  to  hear  it, 

—  indeed,  there  would  have  been  nothing  of  the  sort 
to  hear  had  she  been  able  to  keep  her  appointment, 

—  was  probably  never  aware  how  severe  an  attack 
her  beauty  and  her  headache  conjoined  had  cost  her 
country. 

But  Lord  Brougham's  bark  was  ever  worse  than  his 
bite.  These  impetuous  sallies  of  severity  and  sarcasm 
were  really  only  parentheses  in  the  powerful  and  bril- 
liant speeches  of  this  remarkable  orator,  whose  elo- 
quence both  at  the  bar  and  in  the  two  Houses  of  Par- 
liament, during  a  long  term  of  years,  was  hardly 
inferior  to  that  of  any  man  of  his  time. 

Nor  was  his  eloquence  confined  only  to  public  places 
and  occasions.  He  had  few  equals  for  that  conversa- 
tional wit,  humor,  anecdote,  and  off-hand  repartee 
which  are  the  life  of  a  dinner-table.  I  recall  a  dinner- 
party given  by  Miss  Burdett-Coutts  on  the  day  on 


22  A   FRAGMENT 

which  she  had  laid  the  corner-stone  of  the  beautiful 
church  built  by  her  in  the  district  associated  with  her 
father  Sir  Francis  Burdett's  parliamentary  service,  and 
as  a  memorial  of  his  labors,  —  when  Lord  Dundonald, 
who  had  just  been  restored  to  the  honors  of  which  he 
had  been  unjustly  deprived,  and  Lord  Brougham, 
and  many  others  of  her  father's  old  friends  were 
assembled  around  her ;  and  when  the  brilliancy  of  the 
feast  and  of  the  company  was  quite  eclipsed  by  the 
scintillations  and  coruscations  of  Brougham's  wit  and 
anecdote.  I  dare  not  attempt  to  describe  them. 

Nor  was  Lord  Brougham  by  any  means  unwilling  to 
recognize  a  great  American  example,  when  an  oppor- 
tunity offered  itself.  There  is  no  nobler  tribute  to  the 
pre-eminent  glory  of  Washington  than  that  sentence 
of  Brougham's,  which  he  repeated  in  the  same  pre- 
cise words  on  two  separate  occasions,  ten  or  twelve 
years  apart:  "It  will  be  the  duty  of  the  historian 
and  the  sage  in  all  ages  to  let  no  occasion  pass  of 
commemorating  this  illustrious  man ;  and,  until  time 
shall  be  no  more,  will  a  test  of  the  progress  which 
our  race  has  made  in  wisdom  and  virtue  be  derived 
from  the  veneration  paid  to  the  immortal  name  of 
Washington." 

I  was  dining  in  company  with  him  in  1860,  just  after 
he  had  repeated  in  an  address  at  the  University  of 
Edinburgh  this  memorable  sentence,  which  I  had 
quoted  from  him  twelve  years  before  in  laying  the 
corner-stone  of  the  National  Monument  to  Washington  ; 
and  I  ventured  to  allude  to  the  repetition,  and  to  my 
having  had  such  good  reason  for  remembering  the 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  23 

sentence.  He  said  at  once  that  he  was  proud  to  have 
the  sentence  remembered  by  an  American,  and  that  he 
had  used  it  twice  designedly,  in  the  same  precise  words, 
as  an  evidence  that  it  was  his  deliberate  judgment  on 
Washington's  career  and  character.  So  we  agreed  to 
exchange  addresses ;  and  the  next  day  he  sent  me  not 
only  his  Edinburgh  discourse,  but  a  volume  also  of 
"  Tracts,  Mathematical  and  Physical,"  which  he  had 
just  published,  with  an  autograph  inscription. 

Of  Lord  LYNDHURST, —  an  American  by  birth,  as  is 
well  known,  —  I  can  recall  but  little  beyond  what  I 
said  in  announcing  his  death  to  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society,  of  which  he  was  an  Honorary 
Member.  It  is  all  printed  in  their  Proceedings  for 
November,  1863,  and  in  the  second  volume  of  my 
Addresses  and  Speeches.  A  sentence  or  two  will 
suffice  for  these  reminiscences  :  — 

"  He  was  one  of  the  few  parliamentary  orators,  of 
late  years,  who  commanded  attention  beyond  the  limits 
of  his  own  land,  and  whose  speeches,  on  foreign  and 
domestic  questions  alike,  were  read  with  interest  and 
eagerness  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  There  are  those 
here  who  remember  well  how  emphatically  Mr.  Webster 
spoke,  on  his  return  from  England  many  years  ago,  of 
the  clearness,  cogency,  and  true  eloquence  which  char- 
acterized a  speech  of  Lyndhurst's  which  he  himself 
had  been  fortunate  enough  to  hear.  Like  Webster,  he 
was  especially  remarkable  for  the  power  and  precision 
with  which  he  stated  his  case,  and  for  the  lucid  order 
in  which  he  arranged  and  argued  it.  His  advancing 


24  A   FRAGMENT 

age  seemed  only  to  add  mellowness  and  richness  to 
his  eloquence,  while  it  greatly  enhanced  the  inter- 
est with  which  he  was  listened  to.  As  late  as  1860, 
when  he  was  on  the  verge  of  his  eighty-ninth  year, 
he  made  a  speech  on  the  respective  rights  of  the 
two  Houses  of  Parliament,  which  was  regarded  as 
a  model  of  argument  and  oratory,  and  which  made 
London  ring  anew  with  admiration  of  *  the  old  man 
eloquent.' 

"  No  one  who  has  enjoyed  his  hospitality  will  soon 
forget  his  genial  and  charming  manners,  and  the  almost 
boyish  gayety  and  glee  with  which  he  entered  into  the 
amusements  of  the  hour.  The  last  time  I  saw  him, 
less  than  four  years  ago,  he  rose  from  his  own  dinner- 
table,  and  placing  one  arm  on  the  shoulder  of  our 
accomplished  associate,  Mr.  Motley,  and  the  other  on 
my  own,  he  proceeded  toward  the  drawing-room, — 
remarking  playfully,  as  he  went,  that  he  believed  he 
could  always  rely  safely  on  the  support  of  his  fellow- 
Bostonians.  .  .  .  Living  to  the  great  age  of  nearly 
ninety-two  years,  with  almost  unimpaired  faculties, 
taking  a  lively  and  personal  interest  to  the  end  both 
in  public  affairs  and  in  social  enjoyments,  and  dying  at 
last  the  senior  peer  of  England,  —  his  name  and  fame 
will  not  soon  be  forgotten.  It  may  safely  be  said,  that 
Boston  has  given  birth  to  but  few  men  —  perhaps 
only  to  one  other,  Franklin  —  who  will  have  secured 
a  more  permanent  or  prominent  place  in  the  world's 
history." 

Boston  certainly  may  be  proud  of  having  given  a 
Lord  Chancellor  to  England.  Lyndhurst  held  that 
high  office  three  times. 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  25 

I  cannot  remember  whether  my  introduction  to 
SAMUEL  ROGERS,  the  poet,  in  connection  with  whom, 
as  the  author  of  the  "  Pleasures  of  Memory,"  nothing 
ought  to  be  forgotten,  was  from  Webster  or  Everett ; 
but  he  did  full  honor  to  whichever  it  was,  by  calling 
at  once  and  offering  me  the  kindest  attentions.  Noth- 
ing could  be  more  characteristic  than  one  of  his  first 
notes  to  me  :  — 

MY  DEAR  MR.  WINTHROP,  —  Pray,  pray  come  and  break- 
fast with  me  at  quarter  before  10,  any  morning  or  every 
morning. 

Yours  ever,  S.  ROGERS.1 

And  so  I  breakfasted  with  him  repeatedly,  —  twice, 
absolutely  alone ;  more  frequently  with  five  or  six 
others. 

One  great  advantage  to  a  stranger  in  breakfasting 
with  Rogers  alone  was  this :  he  could  tell  over  again 
his  oldest  and  best  stories,  with  the  assurance  that  they 
had  not  been  heard  before.  In  a  mixed  party,  on  the 
other  hand,  one  or  more  persons  were  certain  to  have 
heard  them  previously,  and  this  restrained  and  discon- 
certed him. 

At  one  of  these  tete-h-tetes,  I  remember  that  he 
dwelt  almost  entirely  on  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 
He  told  me  that  many  years  before,  when  he  was  din- 
ing in  company  with  the  great  English  hero,  the  Duke 
said :  "  I  wonder  why  it  is  that  nobody  ever  invites  me 
to  dine  on  Sundays.  I  get  three  or  four  invitations 
for  every  other  day  of  the  week ;  but  on  Sunday,  after 

1  There  was  no  date  to  this  note. 


26  A   FRAGMENT 

going  to  church  [for  the  Duke  was  a  regular  attendant 
on  public  worship],  I  have  only  a  late  lonely  dinner  at 
home,  and  a  desolate  evening."  As  soon  as  Rogers 
reached  home,  he  sat  down  and  wrote  two  or  three  in- 
vitations on  this  wise :  — 

"  Mr.  Rogers  requests  the  honor  of  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton's company  at  dinner  on  Sunday  next,  at  7£  o'clock." 

"  Mr.  Rogers  requests  the  honor  of  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton's company  on  Sunday  week  [giving  the  date  of  the  fol- 
lowing Sunday],  at  1\  o'clock." 

Sending  them  both  together  to  Apsley  House,  an 
affirmative  answer  to  both  was  received  without  delay ; 
and  the  Duke  dined  habitually  with  Rogers  for  many 
Sundays  in  succession  during  that  season,  and  perhaps 
during  more  than  one  season. 

Rogers  took  care  to  avoid  introducing  strangers  or 
ceremonious  company  to  these  dinners,  —  asking  only 
two  or  three  of  the  particular  friends  of  the  Duke,  so 
that  he  should  converse  entirely  without  constraint. 
Of  these  conversations  Rogers  made  careful  record ; 
and  on  one  of  the  mornings  I  was  with  him  alone,  he 
sent  his  confidential  servant  upstairs  for  his  journals 
of  that  period,  and  read  to  me  many  interesting  pas- 
sages from  them,  particularly  one  of  the  Duke's  account 
of  his  resigning  his  post  in  1830,  "  rather,"  as  he  said, 
"  than  be  the  head  of  a  faction."  This  was  about  the 
time  of  his  greatest  unpopularity,  when  his  windows 
were  broken  by  the  mob.  Rogers  ended  by  telling  me 
what  I  could  not  have  imagined  before,  that  the  Duke 
never  saw  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  He  may  have  brought 


OF  AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  27 

the  focus  of  his  field-glass  to  bear  upon  him,  in  looking 
at  some  group  at  Waterloo,  but  he  never  consciously 
saw  the  Emperor. 

I  remember  well,  too,  Rogers' s  reading  to  me  at 
length,  as  the  most  striking  scene  he  had  ever  met 
with  in  the  records  of  real  life,  the  account  of  Colonel 
the  Hon.  Frederick  Ponsonby's  sufferings  on  the  field  of 
"Waterloo,  as  given  in  a  little  work  called  "A  Voice 
from  Waterloo,"  by  Sergeant-Major  Cotton.  I  bought 
this  book  from  the  Sergeant-Major  himself  at  Mo.tfc  St. 
Jean  soon  afterward,  while  he  was  guiding  me  over 
the  field  of  the  battle.  The  account  of  Colonel  Pon- 
sonby  is  found  at  page  244,  and  is  as  follows :  — 

"  Colonel  Ponsonby,  of  the  12th  Lt.  Dragoons,  gives  the 
following  account  of  himself  on  being  wounded.  He  says : 
'  In  the  m$Ue  [thick  of  the  fight]  I  was  almost  instantly  dis- 
abled in  both  my  arms,  losing  first  my  sword,  and  then  my 
rein  ;  and  followed  by  a  few  of  my  men  who  were  presently 
cut  down,  no  quarter  being  asked  or  given,  I  was  carried 
along  by  my  horse,  till  receiving  a  blow  from  a  sabre,  I  fell 
senseless  on  my  face  to  the  ground.  Recovering,  I  raised 
myself  a  little  to  look  round,  being  at  that  time  in  a  condi- 
tion to  get  up  and  run  away,  when  a  lancer  passing  by  cried 
out,  "  Tu  n'es  pas  mort,  coquin ! "  and  struck  his  lance 
through  my  back.  My  head  dropped,  the  blood  gushed  into 
my  mouth,  a  difficulty  of  breathing  came  on,  and  I  thought 
all  was  over.  Not  long  after,  a  skirmisher  stopped  to  plun- 
der me,  threatening  iny  life.  I  directed  him  to  a  small  side- 
pocket,  in  which  he  found  three  dollars,  all  I  had  ;  but  he 
continued  to  threaten,  tearing  open  my  waistcoat,  and  leaving 
me  in  a  very  uneasy  posture. 

" '  But  he  was  no  sooner  gone,  than  an  officer  bringing  up 
some  troops,  and  happening  to  halt  where  I  lay,  stooped 
down,  and  addressing  me,  said  he  feared  I  was  badly 


28  A   FRAGMENT 

wounded.  I  answered  that  I  was,  and  expressed  a  wish  to 
be  moved  to  the  rear.  He  said  it  was  against  orders  to  re- 
move even  their  own  men  ;  but  that  if  they  gained  the  day 
(and  he  understood  that  the  Duke  of  Wellington  was  killed, 
and  that  six  of  our  battalions  had  surrendered),  every  atten- 
tion in  his  power  should  be  shown  me.  I  complained  of 
thirst,  and  he  held  his  brandy  bottle  to  my  lips,  directing  one 
of  his  soldiers  to  lay  me  straight  on  my  side,  and  place  a 
knapsack  under  my  head.  They  then  passed  on  into  action, 
soon  perhaps  to  want,  though  not  to  receive,  the  same  assist- 
ance ;  and  I  shall  never  know  to  whose  generosity  I  was 
indebted,  as  I  believe,  for  my  life.  By  and  by,  another 
skirmisher  came  up,  a  fine  young  man,  loading  and  firing. 
He  knelt  down  and  fired  over  me  many  times,  conversing 
with  me  very  gayly  all  the  while.  At  last  he  ran  off,  saying, 
"Vous  serez  bien  aise  d'apprendre  que  nous  allons  retirer. 
Bon  jour,  mon  ami."  It  was  dusk  when  two  squadrons  of 
Prussian  cavalry  crossed  the  valley  in  full  trot,  lifting  me 
from  the  ground  and  tumbling  me  about  cruelly.  The  battle 
was  now  over,  and  the  groans  of  the  wounded  all  around  me 
became  more  audible.  I  thought  the  night  never  would  end. 
About  this  time  I  found  a  soldier  lying  across  my  legs,  and 
his  weight,  his  convulsive  motions,  his  noises,  and  the  air 
issuing  through  a  wound  in  his  side  distressed  me  greatly,  — 
the  last  circumstance  most  of  all,  as  I  had  a  wound  of  the 
same  nature  myself.  It  was  not  a  dark  night,  and  the  Prus- 
sians were  wandering  about  to  plunder.  Many  of  them 
stopped  to  look  at  me  as  they  passed ;  at  last  one  of  them 
stopped  to  examine  me.  I  told  him  that  I  was  a  British 
officer,  and  had  been  already  plundered.  He  did  not,  how- 
ever, desist,  and  pulled  me  about  roughly.  An  hour  before 
midnight  I  saw  a  man  in  an  English  uniform  coming  toward 
me  ;  he  was,  I  suspected,  on  the  same  errand.  I  spoke  in- 
stantly, telling  him  who  I  was.  He  belonged  to  the  40th, 
and  he  had  missed  his  regiment.  He  released  me  from  the 
dying  soldier,  and  took  up  a  sword  and  stood  over  me  as  a 
sentinel.  Day  broke,  and  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  a 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  29 

messenger  was  sent  to  Heive* ;  a  cart  came  for  me,  and  I 
was  conveyed  to  the  village  of  Waterloo,  and  laid  in  the 
bed,  as  I  afterward  understood,  from  which  Gordon  had 
but  just  before  been  carried  out.  I  had  received  seven 
wounds  ;  a  surgeon  slept  in  my  room,  and  I  was  saved  by 
excessive  bleeding.' ': 

It  may  be  conceived  that  I  "supped  full  of  horrors," 
or  rather  breakfasted,  in  hearing  this  thrilling  account 
from  the  sepulchral  voice  of  the  old  poet. 

At  another  of  these  breakfasts  I  met  Milman,  the 
Dean  of  St.  Paul's  ;  Whewell,  the  well-known  Master  of 
Trinity ;  Thirlwall,  Bishop  of  St.  David's  and  historian 
of  Greece,  and  Lord  Glenelg,  a  former  Secretary  of 
State  for  the  Colonies,  —  among  whom  a  discussion 
arose  as  to  what,  upon  the  whole,  was  the  best  story 
ever  written.  The  unanimous  voice  was  for  Goldsmith's 
"  Vicar  of  Wakefield ; "  and  on  a  further  inquiry  as  to 
the  next  best,  the  general  judgment,  to  my  great  sur- 
prise, for  I  could  not  then  remember  that  I  had  ever 
read  it,  was  in  favor  of  Mrs.  Inchbald's  "  Simple  Story.'' 
It  happened  that  in  Paris,  not  long  afterwards,  I  picked 
up  a  volume  of  "  Baudry's  European  Library,"  contain- 
ing only  these  two  stories  bound  together.  I  bought  it 
at  once,  and  wrote  this  judgment  of  these  London  wits 
on  the  fly-leaf,  as  a  souvenir  of  the  occasion. 

At  still  another  of  these  breakfasts  I  met  only  ladies, 
—  the  Countess  of  Orford  and  her  daughter  Lady  Doro- 
thy Walpole,  since  better  known  as  Lady  Dorothy 
Nevill,  the  Dowager  Lady  Lyttleton,  Mrs.  Leicester 
Stanhope,  afterward  Countess  of  Harrington,  and  Lady 
Bulwer-Lytton.  This  was  on  the  17th  of  July,  accord- 


30  A  FRAGMENT 

ing  to  my  journal ;  and  Rogers  is  said  in  the  Biographi- 
cal Dictionaries  to  have  been  born  on  the  31st,  a  fortnight 
later.  But  the  occasion  was  certainly  alluded  to  as 
Rogers's  birthday  festival,  —  his  eighty-fourth,  —  and 
Lady  Bulwer-Lytton  took  from  her  bosom  an  original 
ode  for  the  occasion,  which  she  read  to  him  aloud.  I 
remember,  too,  his  telling  me  that  he  had  a  journal  of 
sixty-seven  years  ago,  recording  a  dinner  in  Paris  (at 
which  he  was  present)  of  twelve  persons,  I  think,  all 
but  two  or  three  of  whom  had  afterward  died  violent 
deaths.  This  must  have  been  at  the  table  of  Lafayette, 
as  in  "  The  Table-Talk  of  Rogers,"  published  after  his 
death,  he  speaks  of  his  first  visit  to  France,  just  before 
the  Revolution,  as  follows  (page  41) :  — 

"  When  we  reached  Paris,  Lafayette  gave  us  a  general  invi- 
tation to  dine  with  him  every  day.  At  his  table  we  once 
dined  with  about  a  dozen  persons  (among  them  the  Due  de 
la  Rochefoucauld,  Condorcet,  etc.)  most  of  whom  afterward 
came  to  an  untimely  end." 

Rogers  must  ever  be  remembered  kindly  by  Ameri- 
cans, were  it  only  for  the  anecdote  he  was  so  fond  of 
recalling  of  his  father,  who,  on  hearing  of  the  first  'blood 
shed  at  Lexington,  —  he  himself  remembered  it  as  a 
boy  of  twelve  years  old,  —  put  on  a  full  suit  of  black, 
and  afterward  wore  nothing  but  mourning  colors  until 
his  death.  He  sent  me  a  beautiful  copy  of  his  works, 
in  two  volumes,  with  an  autograph  inscription,  before 
I  left  England,  and  on  my  return  home  I  ventured  to 
recall  myself  to  his  remembrance  by  sending  him  a 
little  essay  on  "  Health  "  by  my  brother-in-law,  the  late 
Dr.  John  C.  Warren,  together  with  two  of  my  own 


OF  AUTOBIOGKAPHY.  31 

addresses  and  speeches,  —  one  of  them,  that  in  which 
as  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the 
United  States  I  had  announced  the  death  of  Ex-Presi- 
dent John  Quincy  Adams. 

His  acknowledgment  is  too  characteristic  to  be 
omitted  from  these  reminiscences :  — 

LONDON,  April  20,  1848. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  WINTHROP,  —  Eecall  yourself  to  my  remem- 
brance is  what  you  cannot  do,  for  I  must  first  forget  you,  and 
forget  the  many  pleasant  hours  I  have  passed  in  your  com- 
pany. The  first  volume  (on  Health)  I  have  read  again  and 
again  with  no  less  profit  than  pleasure,  and  the  second  who 
can  leave  till  he  has  read  it  ? 

They  would  have  been  precious  gifts,  come  whence  they 
might,  and  I  need  not  say  how  highly  I  shall  value  them  on 
every  account,  for  their  own  sake  and  for  yours. 

But  are  you  now  condemned  to  listen,  and  am  I  never 
again  to  hear  you  ?  Being  now  acquainted  with  your  voice, 
I  could  now  hear  you  when  you  spoke,  and,  deaf  as  I  am, 
catch  every  syllable  from  your  lips  when  it  came  across  the 
Atlantic. 

What  strange  events  are  now  passing  in  the  Old  World ! 
May  they  not  extend  to  the  New ! 

Yours  with  great  regard, 

SAMUEL  ROGERS. 

A  thousand  thanks  for  your  very  affecting  address  in 
Congress.  J.  Q.  A.  has  sat  with  me  more  than  once  as  my 
guest  at  the  very  table  on  which  I  am  now  writing. 

Rogers  has  often  been  called  surly  and  cynical,  and 
he  certainly  knew  how  to  show  his  teeth  on  occasions. 
He  liked  to  say  striking,  epigrammatic  things.  One 
morning  Chester  Harding,  our  well-remembered  por- 


32  A   FRAGMENT 

trait  painter,  called  on  me  in  London  and  said  :  "  I  am 
taking  a  portrait  of  Rogers,  and  he  is  to  give  me  a 
sitting  to-day.  I  want  you,  and  he  wants  you,  to  come 
and  keep  him  company  while  I  am  painting  him."  An 
inexorable  engagement  compelled  me  to  decline  the 
invitation.  The  portrait  was  finished,  and  not  long 
afterward  one  of  Rogers' s  friends  said  to  him,  "So 
you  have  been  sitting  to  an  American  artist.  Is  it 
like?  "  "  Infernally  Uke ! "  was  the  only  reply.  Yet 
the  picture  was  a  good  one,  and  quite  just  to  the  origi- 
nal. It  was  for  Mr.  Everett,  and  long  adorned  his 
library.  But  it  is  hardly  surprising  that  with  so  much 
youth  of  heart,  a  poet  should  be  impatient  under  a 
faithful  representation  of  all  the  infirmities  and  wrinkles 
of  eighty-four. 

I  met  Rogers  often  at  other  houses  besides  his  own. 
I  was  at  luncheon  with  him  one  day  at  Miss  Burdett- 
Coutts's,  when  the  servant  came  in  and  whispered 
something  in  her  ear,  upon  which  she  instantly  ex- 
claimed, "Why,  Mr.  Wordsworth  is  at  the  door!" 
"Wordsworth!"  said  Rogers,  "he  is  not  in  London." 
But  in  another  moment  the  great  poet  of  the  Lakes 
was  with  us  at  the  table,  and  I  was  of  course  presented 
to  him.  As  it  happened,  I  had  brought  a  letter  to  him 
from  Mr.  Ticknor,  which  I  was  to  use  on  my  way  along 
the  Cumberland  Lakes,  and  on  learning  this  he  greeted 
me  most  pleasantly.  While  we  were  at  table,  Miss 
Coutts  chanced  to  inquire  after  a  favorite  servant 
named  James,  whom  she  had  seen  at  Rydal  Mount. 
"  He  is  with  me,"  said  Wordsworth.  "  With  you ! 
where?"  asked  Rogers.  "At  the  door,"  said  Words- 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  33 

worth.  "  James  at  the  door !  "  exclaimed  Miss  Coutts, 
"  why,  I  must  go  and  see  him."  "  So  must  I,"  said 
Rogers.  And  thereupon  the  whole  party  hastened  out 
to  the  street  door  in  Stratton  Street  to  greet  the  faith- 
ful attendant  of  the  poet,  who  had  won  upon  all  their 
hearts  by  the  care  which  he  took  of  his  aged  master. 

WORDSWORTH  was  then  in  his  seventy-eighth  year, 
and  looked  quite  infirm,  with  a  spiritual  look  like 
our  Washington  Allston's.  He  was  in  the  first  anxiety, 
too,  for  a  beloved  daughter,  who  died  in  a  few  weeks 
from  that  time,  just  as  I  was  passing  along  Windermere 
with  a  view  of  calling  to  see  her  father  agreeably  to 
his  request  and  my  promise.  I  was  unwilling  to  in- 
trude upon  so  fresh  a  grief,  and  wrote  him  a  note  of 
sympathy  and  apology.  The  luncheon  at  Miss  Burdett- 
Coutts's  was  thus  my  only  interview  with  Wordsworth. 
He  died  in  1850.  Ten  years  after  his  death,  I  was 
again  among  the  Lakes,  and  as  I  was  passing  his  house 
I  saw  a  red  flag  at  the  gate,  betokening  an  auction 
sale.  I  stopped,  and  found  that  Wordsworth's  library 
was  being  sold  in  the  barn,  to  which  it  had  been 
removed.  I  went  in  and  found  quite  a  company  of 
book-fanciers.  I  saw  one  parcel  knocked  off,  but  could 
not  resist  the  temptation  of  the  second  parcel.  I  made 
a  bid,  and  was  successful ;  but  on  being  called  on  for 
my  name,  I  asked  leave  to  take  the  books  and  pay  for 
them  at  once,  and  to  my  consternation  was  refused. 
So  I  had  to  make  a  little  speech  in  Wordsworth's  barn, 
saying  "  that  I  was  an  American,  accidentally  passing 
by,  and  that  my  family  were  awaiting  me  in  the  rain  at 


34  A   FRAGMENT 

the  door ;  that  I  had  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  knowing 
Mr.  Wordsworth  personally,  and  desired  only  to  obtain 
a  souvenir  of  one  I  had  so  much  admired."  The 
auctioneer  at  last  gave  a  surly  assent,  taking  my 
money  and  giving  me  the  books,  but  stoutly  declaring 
that  it  was  the  only  such  interruption  he  would 
tolerate.  So  I  paid  my  money  and  carried  off  my 
prize  rejoicing. 

The  books  were  quite  miscellaneous,  and  of  no  great 
intrinsic  value;  but  almost  all  of  them  had  Words- 
worth's autograph,  and  had  evidently  been  read  by 
him.  Indeed,  one  of  them  proved  to  be  a  book  of 
which  he  had  a  high  opinion.  Crabb  Robinson,  in  his 
Reminiscences,  says  of  George  Dyer :  "  He  wrote  one 
good  book,  the  '  Life  of  Robert  Robinson,'  which  I  have 
heard  Wordsworth  mention  as  one  of  the  best  books  of 
biography  in  the  language,"  adding  that  "  Dr.  Samuel 
Parr  pronounced  the  same  opinion."  This  was  one  of 
the  books  which  I  purchased  so  accidentally  in  Words- 
worth's barn  at  Rydal  Mount,  and  it  has  an  additional 
interest  from  its  quaint  calico  binding.  Happening  to 
show  it  to  Lord  Houghton,  when  he  was  one  day 
lunching  with  me  in  Boston,  he  told  me  that  it  was 
probably  bound  by  Mrs.  Southey,  whose  habit  it  was  to 
bind  her  husband's  books  with  fragments  of  her  chintz 
or  calico  dresses,  and  who  may  have  treated  one  of  her 
neighbor's  books  to  a  similar  covering.  The  volume  is 
thus  doubly  redolent  of  the  Lake  poets. 

Of  BUCKLAND  and  WHEWELL  and  LYELL  and  HAL- 
LAM,  all  of  whom  I  met  often,  and  to  more  than  one  of 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  35 

whom  I  was  indebted  for  repeated  attentions,  I  have 
little  except  their  kindness  to  recall.  Yet  I  cannot 
omit  a  delightful  breakfast  at  Hallam's  at  which  many 
of  them  were  present,  and  with  them  the  late  amiable 
Earl  of  Carlisle,  to  whom  I  have  previously  alluded  as 
Lord  Morpeth.  English  reserve  has  rarely  been  more 
strikingly  illustrated  than  when,  during  this  breakfast, 
Milman  inquired  across  the  table  as  follows :  — 

"  Lyell,  I  am  quite  curious  to  know  who  it  was  I  sat 
next  to  at  breakfast  yesterday  at  Buckland's.  He  was 
a  most  intelligent  and  agreeable  person.  Did  you 
know  his  name  ?  " 

"No,"  said  Lyell,  "I  really  did  not  know  who  he 
was,  though  I  was  as  much  struck  with  him  as  you 
were ! " 

English  people  at  that  day  never  introduced  'persons 
to  one  another,  and  you  might  breakfast  or  dine  out 
in  the  best  society  every  day  for  a  whole  season  with- 
out knowing  to  whom  you  had  sat  next  or  with  whom 
you  had  been  conversing.  It  was  at  this  same  break- 
fast, I  think,  that  Lord  Carlisle  said  to  me,  — 

"Mr.  Winthrop,  did  you  hear  Chalmers  last  Sun- 
day?" 

"  Chalmers,"  I  replied ;  "  I  did  not  dream  that  he 
was  within  a  hundred  miles  of  London.  Where  can  I 
see  or  hear  him  ?  " 

Alas !  he  had  already  left  town,  and  hardly  a  day 
had  elapsed  before  the  public  journals  announced  that 
he  had  died  suddenly  on  his  return  home.  I  had  thus 
lost  the  opportunity  of  hearing  the  last  sermon  in  Lon- 
don, if  not  the  last  sermon  anywhere,  of  that  eloquent 


36  A   FRAGMENT 

and  excellent  man.  Among  all  the  lost  opportunities 
of  my  first  visit  to  Europe  there  was  hardly  one  which 
I  res-retted  so  much. 

o 

I  did  not  fail,  however,  during  this  and  other  visits 
to  England  to  hear  and  to  know  some  of  her  most  dis- 

O 

tinguished  preachers.  Webster  had  once  told  me  that 
of  all  the  speakers  he  heard  in  the  British  Parliament 
none  impressed  him  so  much  for  simplicity,  clearness, 
directness,  and  force  as  Sir  James  Graham  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  BLOMFIELD,  Bishop  of  London,  in  the 
House  of  Lords.  He  gave  me  a  letter  to  Blomfield, 
and  I  dined  with  him,  and  was  at  his  house  more  than 
once.  I  heard  him  make  a  short  speech  in  the  House 
of  Lords  and  preach  a  good  sermon  at  St.  George's, 
Hanover  Square.  He  reminded  me  of  my  own  former 
Rector,  Dr.  John  Sylvester  John  Gardiner,  of  Trinity 
Church,  Boston,  who  was  born  in  England  and  was  a 
pupil  of  Dr.  Parr.  A  fine  voice,  distinct  articulation, 
and  dignified  manner  gave  a  tone  of  authority  to  all  he 
said,  heightening  the  effect  of  strong  sense  and  a  clas- 
sical style.  He  was  eminently  direct,  as  Webster  said  ; 
not  a  word  or  illustration  aside  from  the  purpose. 

WILBERFORCE,  then  Bishop  of  Oxford,  afterward  of 
Winchester,  had  far  more  of  rhetorical  grace  and  art. 
He  was  long  the  foremost  orator  of  the  bench  of 
bishops,  and  it  was  often  difficult  to  get  a  seat  where 
it  was  known  he  was  to  preach.  I  breakfasted  with 
him  soon  after  my  arrival  in  London  in  1847.  As  he 
had  written  the  history  of  "The  American  Church," 
and  was  familiar  with  the  earliest  New  England  annals, 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  37 

he  more  than  once  made  it  a  subject  of  comment 
and  of  congratulation  that  the  lineal  descendants  of 
Governor  Winthrop,  the  Puritan,  had  long  since  got 
back  into  the  Episcopal  fold.  When  I  was  in  England 
the  second  time,  I  made  special  application  to  him  for 
a  seat  at  the  church  where  he  was  to  preach,  and  the 
following  characteristic  note  to  one  of  the  vestry  or 
clergy  of  St.  Peter's  will  tell  with  what  result :  — 

26  PALL  MALL,  Saturday,  June  9. 

MY  DEAR  MB.  FULLER,  —  Will  you  kindly  send  one  line 
with  order  of  admission  for  two  ladies  and  one  gentleman 
to-morrow,  for  some  tip-top  American  friends  of  mine,  to  the 
Hon.  Rob.  Winthrop,  the  Alber marie  Hotel  ? 

I  am  most  sincerely  yours,  S.  OXON. 

Of  course  I  had  an  excellent  seat  and  was  greatly 
gratified.  The  sermon  was  a  most  impressive  and 
admirable  appeal  for  some  charitable  object,  and 
afforded  me  a  striking  proof  of  the  bishop's  pulpit 
eloquence.  But  I  afterward  heard  a  still  more  effec- 
tive utterance  of  his  in  the  House  of  Lords  of  an 
entirely  different  character.  It  was  a  speech  in  reply 
to  the  Duke  of  Argyll  on  the  disestablishment  of  the 
Irish  Church.  Longfellow  and  I  were  together  on  the 
steps  of  the  throne,  and  were  deeply  impressed  by 
the  force  and  dignity  of  the  Duke's  speech.  Wilber- 
force  was  powerful  and  eloquent,  also ;  but  his  speech 
had  nothing  of  the  bishop  except  the  lawn  sleeves, 
and  was  as  personal  and  pungent  a  piece  of  stump- 
speaking  as  we  could  have  heard  in  our  own  land. 
Longfellow  well  said  that  the  Duke  was  more  like  a 


38  A  FRAGMENT 

bishop  in  that  debate.  But  Wilberforce  had  great 
qualities  both  as  a  prelate  and  a  statesman,  and  was  a 
delightful  companion,  endeared  to  all  who  knew  him. 
He  was  a  younger  son  of  the  renowned  and  revered 
philanthropist  William  Wilberforce,  whose  celebrity 
was  wide  enough  and  enduring  enough  to  distinguish 
a  whole  family  for  a  dozen  generations.  But  he  early 
extricated  himself  from  the  often  oppressive  shadow  of 
a  great  paternal  or  ancestral  name,  and  asserted  his 
individual  title  to  an  exalted  place  both  in  the  eccle- 
siastical and  the  civil  history  of  his  country.  Indeed, 
few  prelates  of  the  English  Church,  in  our  own  day  or  in 
any  other  day,  took  a  more  conspicuous  stand  or  enjoyed 
a  wider  and  more  deserved  distinction.  His  successor 
in  the  See  of  Winchester,  DR.  HAROLD  BROWNE,  I  also 
knew  and  greatly  liked. 

One  of  the  most  notable  prelates  whom  I  knew  in 
1847  was  RICHARD  WHATELY,  Archbishop  of  Dublin. 
I  met  him  first  at  a  breakfast  at  Nassau  W.  Senior's, 
to  whom  Webster  had  given  me  a  letter.  When  I 
entered  the  room,  where  the  other  guests  had  arrived 
before  me,  I  saw  a  tall  gaunt  figure,  in  a  straight- 
bodied  coat,  with  tightly  gaitered  legs  and  an  apron 
appended  to  his  waistcoat,  standing  with  his  back  to 
the  fire  and  holding  up  a  small  puppy  by  the  nape  of 
its  neck,  upon  which  he  was  discoursing  most  humor- 
ously. I  was  hardly  prepared  for  meeting  one  of  the 
great  thinkers  and  writers  of  the  English  Church  in 
such  an  attitude.  But  Whately  had  a  vein  of  drollery 
which  could  not  be  controlled,  and  which  he  did  not 


OP   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  39 

care  to  control.  He  was  full  of  anecdote  and  witty 
repartee  during  the  breakfast,  and  made  me  quite  at 
home  with  him  by  his  personal  cordiality  and  kindness. 
He  insisted  on  taking  me  to  my  hotel,  after  breakfast 
was  over,  in  his  chariot,  and  made  me  promise  to  come 
and  see  him  in  Dublin,  if  I  should  cross  over  to 
Ireland  in  the  summer. 

I  met  him  next  at  a  big  dinner  at  the  Marquis  of 
Lansdowne's  (then  President  of  the  Council),  where 
several  Cabinet  ministers  were  present.  It  was  pleasant 
and  sumptuous,  but  had  a  little  of  the  coldness  and  for- 
mality which  might  be  imagined  in  a  banquet  hall 
almost  lined  with  antique  marble  statues.  Whately, 
however,  did  not  fail  to  "  set  the  table  in  a  roar  "  now 
and  then,  until  he  retired  with  Lady  Lansdowne  and 
the  other  ladies,  while  the  gentlemen  remained  for  half 
an  hour  to  try  the  qualities  of  the  Lansdowne  cellar. 
When  we  went  up  to  the  drawing-room  I  found  the 
Archbishop,  with  cards  and  scissors  in  hand,  lecturing 
on  the  principle  of  the  boomerang.,  cutting  out  little  semi- 
circular strips  and  blowing  or  snapping  them  so  as  to 
make  them  return  upon  his  own  nose  or  head.  He 
was  in  great  glee,  and  the  ladies  quite  wild  with 
merriment. 

When  I  was  in  Dublin,  a  few  months  afterward, 
Whately  accompanied  me  through  Trinity  College 
and  took  me  also  to  visit  the  National  Schools  of 
Ireland,  where  Bible  lessons,  arranged  by  him  and  the 
Roman  Catholic  Archbishop,  were  daily  read.  He 
was  specially  proud  of  having  been  the  means  of 
bringing  about  such  a  reconciliation  of  the  Protestant 


40  A    FRAGMENT 

and  Catholic  children,  so  that  the  Bible  should  be 
read  to  them  both.  But,  alas !  this  reconciliation  was 
short-lived,  and  dissensions  and  jealousies  soon  put  an 
end  to  the  arrangement.  The  volume  containing  these 
Bible  lessons  is  still  in  my  possession,  given  me  by 
Whately  himself,  and  I  cannot  but  hope  that  some- 
thing of  the  same  sort  may  be  found  permanently 
practicable  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  if  not  on  that. 
Whately  gave  me  several  other  books.  It  happened 
that  while  I  was  studying  law  with  Webster,  Whately's 
Rhetoric  had  been  recently  printed,  and  Webster 
came  into  the  office  one  morning  and  said :  "  Winthrop, 
have  you  read  the  essay  on  rhetoric  by  Archbishop 
Whately?  If  not,  get  it  and  read  it  at  once.  It  is 
worth  all  the  classics  on  that  subject."  I  found  an 
opportunity  to  tell  this  to  Whately ;  and  the  next  day 
he  sent  me  the  latest  editions  both  of  his  Rhetoric  and 
Logic,  with  a  kind  note.  He  sent  me  at  the  same 
time  several  copies  of  two  separate  pamphlets,  in 
which  were  comprised  all  the  alterations  and  addi- 
tions which  he  had  made  in  his  new  edition,  begging 
me  to  give  them  to  any  persons  in  the  United  States 
who  were  interested  in  his  works.  He  told  me 
these  pamphlets  of  "alterations  and  additions"  were 
printed,  at  his  own  cost,  for  gratuitous  distribution, 
as  he  preferred  to  be  read  correctly  rather  than  to 
make  money  out  of  new  editions.  He  complained  that 
our  publishers  not  only  printed  all  his  works,  but  did 
not  take  the  pains  to  make  the  changes,  —  sometimes 
putting  second  or  third  edition  on  the  titlepage,  with- 
out any  reference  to  the  corrections  or  new  matter 
which  these  editions  contained. 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  41 

Whately  was  proud  of  having  so  large  a  number  of 
American  readers,  and  said'  there  was  only  one  of  his 
books  which  had  not  been  reprinted  in  the  United 
States,  and  of  which  he  had  not  himself  obtained  an 
American  edition.  This  was  the  "  Essay  on  the  Diffi- 
culties of  the  Writings  of  Saint  Paul."  It  has  been 
printed  at  Andover  since  his  death.  "  If  I  could 
have,"  said  he,  "  a  penny  a  volume  on  all  the  copies 
of  my  books  printed  in  America,  I  should  be  far  richer 
than  I  ever  have  been  from  the  See  of  Dublin."  He 
asked  me  to  take  some  of  his  books  to  Alonzo  Potter, 
Bishop  of  Pennsylvania,  of  whom  he  expressed  the  very 
highest  opinion,  and  for  whom  he  had  formed  a  warm 
friendship ;  and  he  continued  to  send  me  his  pamphlets 
for  many  years  after  my  return  to  America,  and 
almost  to  the  time  of  his  own  death. 

If  it  be  true,  as  has  been  said,  that  Whately  became 
in  his  old  age  a  convert  to  modern  Spiritualism,  it  is 
only  a  proof  how  the  strongest  intellect  and  clearest 
perception  and  solidest  common-sense  may  be  betrayed 
by  that  passion  for  novelties  which  is  the  besetting  sin 
of  ambitious  souls.  He  loved  notoriety,  and  was  will- 
ing to  be  remarked  upon  for  eccentricity  rather  than 
not  to  be  remarked  upon  at  all.  Yet,  take  him  for  all 
in  all,  few  English  prelates  have  contributed  more  to 
the  cause  of  religious,  moral,  and  intellectual  advance- 
ment. I  never  heard  him  preach,  but  his  little  volumes 
of  sermons,  as  a  curate,  on  a  "  Future  State  "  and  on 
"  Good  and  Evil  Angels,"  show  how  instructive  a 
preacher  he  must  have  been. 


42  A   FRAGMENT 

Whately  was  succeeded  in  the  See  of  Dublin  by 
TRENCH,  whom  I  knew  while  he  was  Dean  of  West- 
minster, and  whom  I  heard  preach  in  the  Abbey. 
Meeting  Rufus  Choate,  so  long  the  leader  of  our  Bos- 
ton Bar,  one  day  in  State  Street,  he  said  :  "  What  are 
you  reading?  Stop  at  Little  &  Brown's  and  get  a 
copy  of  the  Hulsean  Lectures  by  Richard  Chenevix 
Trench.  There  is  nothing  of  late  days  equal  to  them 
for  richness  of  style  and  grandeur  of  thought."  From 
that  time  I  read  everything  of  Trench's,  —  prose  and 
poetry,  sacred  and  secular,  —  the  "  Parables  "  and 
"  Miracles,"  the  Essays  on  Words  and  on  Proverbs,  the 
Life  of  Calderon,  the  poems,  and  first  of  all,  of  course, 
the  Hulsean  Lectures.  I  thus  knew  him  almost  as  well 
before  breakfasting  at  his  table,  and  being  with  him  an 
hour  in  the  "Jerusalem  Chamber,"  as  after  enjoying 
such  opportunities  of  conversing  with  him  personally. 
His  sermon  at  Westminster  Abbey  was  excellent,  but 
not  so  impressive  in  delivery  as  I  had  anticipated.  In 
conversation  and  in  books  he  was  greater  than  in  preach- 
ing. He  was  a  marvellous  master  of  words  and  style, 
and  his  thoughts  were  often  powerful  and  his  illustra- 
tions brilliant ;  but  his  magnetism  seemed  to  evaporate 
before  he  ascended  the  pulpit.  I  remember  meeting 
him  again  at  Oxford  (when  he  took  the  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Laws  in  company  with  my  friend  George 
Peabody,  the  philanthropist,  and  when  I  sat  next  to 
him  at  the  Vice-Chancellor's  dinner),  and  again  in 
London,  in  1874,  when  his  health  was  failing. 

I  recall  that  on  the  other  side  of  me  at  the  Vice- 
Chancellor's   table   was   MANSEL,   the   author   of    the 


OF  AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  43 

"  Limitations  of  Religious  Thought,"  a  profound  meta- 
physical work,  and  who  was  afterward  Dean  of  St. 
Paul's.  Ardent,  joyous,  full  of  anecdote  and  clever 
repartee,  Mansel  seemed  to  have  before  him  a  long 
career  of  intellectual  activity ;  but  he  had  hardly 
succeeded  Milinan  at  St.  Paul's,  in  less  than  three 
years  after  I  had  known  him,  when  he  was  struck 
with  apoplexy  and  died. 

MILMAN  I  knew  in  the  cloisters  of  Westminster 
Abbey  in  1847,  when  he  was  a  canon,  and  met  him 
often  at  his  own  house  and  at  other  houses  at  each 
succeeding  visit  to  London.  Webster  had  given  me  a 
note  to  his  charming  wife,  whom  everybody  admired 
and  loved,  and  they  were  both  full  of  kindness  to  me. 
His  great  historical  works  on  Christianity  and  the  Jews 
are  as  well  known  in  our  country  as  in  his  own.  His 
"  Martyrs  of  Antioch "  have  furnished  a  sweet  and 
touching  hymn  for  many  a  funeral  service.  His  "  Fazio  " 
has  supplied  a  character  (Bianca)  for  Fanny  Kemble's 
most  powerful  impersonation ;  nothing  in  Shakspeare 
gave  more  scope  to  her  genius.  But  those  who  have 
not  known  him  in  the  cloisters  of  Westminster  or  in 
the  Deanery  of  St.  Paul's  have  not  known  him  at  all. 
Full  of  information  and  eager  to  impart  it,  with  nothing 
of  bigotry  or  intolerance,  quiet  in  manner,  genial  in 
temper,  given  to  hospitality,  he  attracted  the  best 
and  most  accomplished  men  of  all  professions,  and 
seemed  always  happy  in  making  others  happy.  The 
last  time  I  saw  him  he  took  me  to  afternoon  service  at 
the  cathedral ;  and  though  his  form  was  so  bent  and 


44  A   FRAGMENT 

bowed  by  infirmity  that  I  might  have  feared  lest  each 
step  should  be  his  last,  his  eye  was  as  bright,  and  his 
brow  as  earnest,  and  his  voice  as  cheery,  and  his  kind- 
ness as  assiduous  as  if  he  were  still  in  his  prime.  He 
was  spared  to  complete  "The  Annals  of  St.  Paul's," 
and  to  direct  the  execution  of  his  cherished  plans  for 
the  restoration  of  the  grand  cathedral ;  and  in  view  of 
all  he  did  in  this  regard,  we  might  almost  as  well  say 
of  him  as  of  its  architect,  "  Si  monumentum  quaeris, 
circumspice." 

Two  of  the  most  interesting  and  valuable  additions 
to  historical  and  antiquarian  literature  in  our  time  are 
"The  Annals  of  St.  Paul's,"  by  Milman,  and  "The 
Annals  of  Westminster  Abbey,"  by  Dean  Stanley. 
The  name  of  ARTHUR  PENRHYN  STANLEY  was  early 
known  in  this  country  as  well  as  in  England  by  his 
admirable  life  of  his  great  master,  Dr.  Thomas  Arnold 
of  Rugby,  —  a  name  never  to  be  pronounced  without 
respect  and  almost  veneration,  but  a  name  hardly  ever 
heard  of  out  of  England  until  Stanley  introduced  it 
to  us  and  won  for  himself  the  honor  of  an  able  and 
faithful  biographer  of  a  really  great  and  good  man. 
Stanley  subsequently  added  many  new  claims  to  the 
consideration  and  respect  of  the  literary  and  religious 
world.  His  "  Sinai  and  Palestine,"  his  "  Memorials  of 
Canterbury,"  and  his  lectures  on  the  Jewish  Church, 
as  well  as  his  "  Annals  of  Westminster  Abbey,"  have 
been  read  and  highly  valued  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic  ;  while  his  liberal  views,  and  the  independence 
with  which  he  advocated  them,  deservedly  made  him  a 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  45 

leader  of  advanced  thought  in  the  Church.  He  seemed 
to  me  peculiarly  an  apostle  of  Christian  fraternity,  — 
of  that  brotherly  love  which  has  so  happily  supplanted 
the  odium  theologicwn  of  former  times. 

Meeting  him  first  at  a  breakfast  at  Trench's  in  I860? 
I  had  frequent  opportunities  from  that  time  until  his 
death,  alike  at  his  house,  in  my  own,  and  elsewhere, 
to  appreciate  the  exceeding  charm  of  his  personal 
intercourse.  I  had  the  good  fortune  once  to  be  pres- 
ent at  Westminster  Abbey  when  he  delivered  a 
memorable  sermon,  prompted  by  three  events  of  no 
little  interest  at  least  to  Englishmen,  —  the  thirtieth 
anniversary  of  the  Queen's  coronation ;  the  escape  of 
the  Duke  of  Edinburgh  from  an  attempted  assassina- 
tion ;  and  the  safe  return  of  Lord  Napier  of  Magdala 
and  his  army  from  their  brief  but  decisive  campaign 
in  Abyssinia.  The  Abbey  was  crowded.  The  Prince 
and  Princess  of  Wales  and  many  others  of  the  royal 
family  were  present.  The  choral  service  was  brilliant, 
and  the  grand  organ  thundered  forth  the  National 
Anthem  most  impressively.  The  slight  figure,  quiet 
manner,  and  simple  style  of  the  preacher  were  in 
striking  contrast  with  the  surroundings,  and  furnished 
welcome  proof  that  he  was  incapable  of  being  betrayed 
into  any  mere  sensational  rhetoric,  or  of  being  diverted 
from  a  plain,  practical  enforcement  of  the  moral  and 
religious  lessons  of  the  hour.  He  felt,  and  made 
others  feel,  that  he  was  speaking  in  the  presence  and 
as  the  servant  of  One  above  all  earthly  heroes  or 
princes. 

The  recent  admirable  life  of  him  by  Dean  Bradley 


46  A   FRAGMENT 

and  Mr.  Prothero  cannot  fail  to  enhance  the  affection- 
ate veneration  with  which  his  memory  will  henceforth 
be  regarded  by  all  who  are  capable  of  properly  appre- 
ciating his  exalted  character.  A  somewhat  elaborate 
tribute  which  I  paid  him  at  the  time  of  his  death  is  to 
be  found  in  the  fourth  volume  of  my  Addresses  and 
Speeches,  and  I  resist  the  temptation  to  reprint  pas- 
sages from  it  here.  I  always  remember  with  especial 
pleasure  my  constant  intercourse  with  him  in  Paris, 
in  1875,  when  his  devoted  wife,  Lady  Augusta,  was 
so  ill  at  Madame  Mohl's,  as  well  as  the  week  he  sub- 
sequently passed  in  my  house  at  Brookline. 

Among  my  English  friends  and  correspondents  there 
have  been  none  for  whom  I  have  felt  a  warmer  per- 
sonal regard  than  for  Lord  ARTHUR  HERVEY,  Bishop 
of  Bath  and  Wells  (still,  I  rejoice,  surviving),  and  the 
late  JOHN  SINCLAIR,  long  Archdeacon  of  Middlesex 
and  Vicar  of  Kensington. 

Before  his  elevation  to  the  episcopate,  a  quarter  of 
a  century  ago,  Lord  Arthur  held  the  family  living 
of  Ickworth  in  Suffolk,  and  was  for  some  years  Arch- 
deacon of  Sudbury.  Some  of  his  lectures  at  the  Bury 
Athenaeum,  and  some  of  his  contributions  to  the  published 
Proceedings  of  the  Suffolk  Institute  of  Archaeology,  bore 
testimony  to  his  accomplishments  and  culture  at  that 
period.  Since  then  he  has  become  widely  known  as 
the  successful  administrator  of  an  important  diocese,  as 
the  author  of  charges  to  his  clergy  replete  with  dig- 
nity and  wisdom,  as  an  influential  member  of  the  Com- 
mission for  Revising  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  as  the 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  47 

writer  of  a  remarkable  course  of  lectures  upon  the  au- 
thenticity of  St.  Luke's  Gospel.  I  have  had  repeated 
opportunities  for  appreciating  the  charm  of  his  do- 
mestic circle  both  amid  the  pleasing  rural  scenery 
of  Ickworth  Rectory  and  the  picturesque  surroundings 
of  the  episcopal  palace  at  Wells.  It  was  while  on 
a  visit  to  him  at  Wells  that  I  first  met  his  neighbor, 
the  historian  Freeman. 

Archdeacon  Sinclair  brought  me  a  note  of  introduc- 
tion when  he  came  over  with  Bishop  Spencer  and  others 
many  years  ago  to  attend  the  Triennial  Convention  of 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  at  New  York.  Almost 
immediately  on  receiving  him,  I  ventured  to  inquire 
whether  he  were  not  a  son  of  that  Sir  John  Sinclair 
who  corresponded  with  Washington  on  agriculture ; 
and  on  his  replying  in  the  affirmative,  I  said,  "I  sup- 
pose you  have  an  abundance  of  copies  of  that  corre- 
spondence as  printed  long  ago  in  England  ?  "  "  Not 
one,"  said  he ;  "  we  have  given  them  all  away  from 
time  to  time,  and  I  have  not  even  saved  a  copy  for  my- 
self." "  Then,"  said  I,  "  perhaps  you  will  accept  this 
copy  from  me,"  taking  one  from  the  table  at  my  side, 
where  I  had  a  dozen  of  them  which  had  just  been  sent 
to  me  as  a  Trustee  of  the  Massachusetts  Agricultural 
Society,  by  whom  a  new  edition  had  been  printed  for 
distribution  as  prizes  that  very  year.  It  was  a  striking 
coincidence,  and  amused  and  gratified  us  both.  Since 
then  I  twice  visited  him  at  his  pleasant  vicarage  of 
Kensington,  and  at  least  once  partook  the  Communion 
from  his  hands  in  old  Kensington  church,  which  has 
now  disappeared  for  a  new  one.  Among  the  persons 


48  A   FRAGMENT 

I  met  at  his  table  were  two  of  his  sisters,  —  Miss 
Catharine  Sinclair,  whose  writings  are  so  well  known, 
and  the  Dowager  Countess  of  Glasgow,  —  Lord  Chan- 
cellor Hatherley,  then  Sir  William  Page  Wood,  and 
others  whose  names  have  escaped  me ;  and  I  owed  to 
him  an  introduction  to  the  late  Lady  Holland,  and 
several  charming  visits  to  Holland  House,  as  well  as  to 
Dean  Ramsay  and  other  friends  of  his  in  Edinburgh. 
There  never  beat  in  human  bosom  a  kinder  heart  than 
in  that  of  the  good  Archdeacon.  His  sermons  and 
charges,  of  which  he  sent  me  not  a  few,  were  full  of 
good  sense  as  well  as  of  religious  instruction.  Suc- 
cessive bishops  of  London  leaned  on  him  for  support. 
Macaulay  was  one  of  his  parishioners.  Some  sketches 
of  eminent  men  whom  he  had  known,  printed  for 
private  circulation  only,  were  excellent.  Without  pre- 
tensions to  the  graces  of  oratory,  simple  and  natural 
in  expression  and  delivery,  the  one  sermon  I  heard 
from  him  was  admirably  adapted  to  a  Communion 
Sunday,  and  prepared  us  all  for  partaking  in  the 
right  spirit  of  that  simplest,  solemnest  feast. 

I  may  not  forget,  in  this  connection,  that  I  have  been 
in  the  company  of  three  successive  Archbishops  of 
Canterbury.  Of  the  earliest  (SUMNER),  in  1847,  I  saw 
but  little,  and  was  only  presented  to  him  formally.  Of 
the  two  others  I  have  happily  been  privileged  to  know 
more.  A  delightful  afternoon  at  Lambeth  with  Long- 
fellow, accompanied  by  the  ladies  of  our  party,  is  fresh 
in  my  memory.  LONGLEY  was  then  Primate,  and  a 
more  charming  old  man  has  rarely  been  seen.  I  had 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  49 

heard  him  preach  forcibly  and  eloquently  ten  or  twelve 
years  before  in  Paris,  while  he  was  Bishop  of  Bipon. 
Since  then  he  had  been  Archbishop  of  York  for  a  very 
brief  term,  —  giving  room  for  the  Ion  mot  of  Punch, 
"  Longley,  Archbishop  of  York ;  Shortly,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury."  He  was  a  favorite  at  Court,  as  he.  de- 
served to  be  for  his  piety  and  excellence,  and  the  earli- 
est opportunity  was  taken  to  make  him  Primate.  He 
was  full  of  kindness  in  taking  us  into  the  old  Lambeth 
chapel  and  showing  us  where  the  first  American  bishop 
was  consecrated ;  and  he  sent  his  son  with  us  to  the  top 
of  the  Lollard's  Tower,  with  its  interesting  historical 
associations,  and  its  exquisite  view  of  London  and  the 
Thames,  the  shipping  and  the  bridges.  Some  of  the 
ladies  were  but  too  well  satisfied  to  remain  below  and 
enjoy  his  delightful  conversation.  He  died  soon  after 
our  return  to  America,  universally  respected  and 
beloved. 

His  successor,  Dr.  TAIT,  I  had  previously  known  as 
Bishop  of  London ;  and  in  my  address  at  Plymouth  in 
1870,  on  the  250th  Anniversary  of  the  Landing  of  the 
Pilgrims,  I  was  led,  in  speaking  of  the  Bradford  Manu- 
script, to  give  some  account  of  visits  to  him  at  Fulham, 
since  which  time  I  have  repeatedly  been  his  guest  at 
Lambeth  Palace,  and  have  been  invited  to  stay  with  him 
at  Addington.  A  man  of  the  greatest  simplicity  of 
manner  and  character,  Dr.  Tait  seemed  to  me  as  well 
calculated  to  win  hearts  to  the  Church  and  to  Christ  as 
any  one  I  had  ever  known.  The  apparent  feebleness  of 
his  health  only  added  to  his  attractions,  though  there 


50  A   FRAGMENT 

was  nothing  feeble  in  his  tone.  Eminently  prudent, 
conciliatory,  liberal,  and  wise,  he  seemed  made  for  pre- 
siding over  the  councils  of  the  English  Church  at  a 
moment  when  a  stern  or  bigoted  policy  must  have  cost 
a  breach,  if  not  a  schism.  I  never  heard  hirn  preach, 
but  I  was  present  during  the  first  debate  on  the  Bill 
for  disestablishing  the  Irish  Church,  when  he  rose 
about  midnight  and  made  one  of  the  most  admirable 
and  impressive  speeches  to  which  I  have  ever  listened. 
Advancing  to  the  middle  of  that  magnificent  chamber, 
crowded  with  all  that  was  most  distinguished  in  rank, 
statesmanship,  literature,  and  theology,  without  notes 
and  with  no  evidence  of  formal  preparation,  he  dis- 
cussed the  policy  of  the  bill  with  a  moderation,  a 
clearness,  a  precision,  and  a  power  which  were  worthy 
of  his  position  and  of  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion ; 
and  I  could  say  of  Tait,  as  Webster  said  of  his 
predecessor  in  the  See  of  London  (Blomfield),  that  I 
heard  nothing  better  of  its  kind  in  either  House  of 
Parliament.  His  death,  fourteen  years  later,  was  a 
great  public  loss. 

I  must  not  omit  to  allude  to  my  slight  acquaintance, 
in  1847,  with  the  venerable  Dr.  VERNON-HARCOURT, 
then  Archbishop  of  York,  who  told  me  that  he  saw 
Webster  for  only  a  few  minutes,  but  that  in  that  brief 
interview  he  learned  more  about  the  American  Consti- 
tution than  in  all  the  rest  of  his  life.  My  own  inter- 
view with  him,  alas,  was  as  brief  as  Webster's,  and 
left  only  the  impression  of  a  grand  old  prelate,  ripe  for 
the  translation  which  he  soon  experienced,  whose  noble 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  51 

monument  in  York  Cathedral  I  saw  on  my  next  visit 
to  England.  From  two  of  his  sons,  both  members  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  Colonel  George  Harcourt,  of 
Nuneham,  and  Granville  Vernon,  I  received  polite  at- 
tentions. The  former  became,  somewhat  late  in  life, 
the  third  husband  of  the  famous  Frances,  Countess 
Waldegrave ;  and  the  latter  was  the  father  of  a  charm- 
ing woman,  the  second  wife  of  my  friend  and  remote 
connection,  Humphrey  Mildmay. 

Nor  can  I  fail  to  recall  the  kindness  which  I  received 
in  1847  and  afterward  from  the  late  Lord  LANSDOWNE, 
to  whom  I  have  already  passingly  alluded.  He  was 
hardly  a  great  statesman,  but  he  had  elements  of  char- 
acter which  are  even  better  than  greatness.  Frank, 
honest,  cordial,  genial,  he  was  the  man  of  all  others  for 
a  President  of  the  Council,  and  seemed  eminently  calcu- 
lated to  influence  the  course  of  government  by  persua- 
sion rather  than  by  force ;  to  be  always  ready  with 
conciliatory  explanations,  to  temper  and  control  the 
extravagances  of  party  leaders,  and  to  preside  over 
public  ceremonials  and  administer  official  hospitalities. 

After  breakfasting  tete-a-tete  with  him  on  one  occa- 
sion, he  took  me  in  his  carriage  to  see  one  of  the 
"  Home  and  Colonial  Juvenile  and  Teachers'  Schools  " 
in  which  he  was  interested,  and  gave  me  a  number  of 
the  school-books  to  bring  home  for  comparison  with 
our  own.  But  some  of  these  books  were  really  our  own, 
though  not  perhaps  under  the  name  of  the  American 
author.  There  was  a  great  power  of  appropriation,  assi- 
milation, and  digestion  among  the  commoner  sort  of 


52  A    FRAGMENT 

English  book-makers,  and  they  did  not  always  give 
credit  for  what  they  borrowed,  still  less  for  what  they 
stole.  We  have  been  dishonest  enough  in  the  matter 
of  copyright,  but  when  we  reprint,  we  at  least  acknow- 
ledge the  authorship  to  belong  elsewhere. 

Lord  Lansdowne  kindly  invited  me  to  be  his  guest  at 
Bowood  after  the  rising  of  Parliament,  and  promised  me 
a  meeting  with  Tom  Moore;  but  I  had  then  never  been 
on  the  Continent,  and  had  much  to  do  and  see  before 
returning  home  for  the  ensuing  session  of  Congress.  I 
less  regretted  not  meeting  Moore  as  he  was  fast  becom- 
ing a  wreck,  and  little  but  the  name  of  the  charming 
poet  and  songster  was  left.  I  was  similarly  obliged  to 
forego  visits  to  Lord  Ashburton  at  the  Grange,  and  to 
Evelyn  Denison  at  Ossington ;  but  I  found  time  for  a 
pious  pilgrimage  (the  first  of  several)  to  the  home  of 
my  ancestors  at  Groton,  in  Suffolk,  in  which  neighbor- 
hood I  was  hospitably  entertained  by  RICHARD  ALMACK, 
of  Long  Melford,  a  leading  member  of  the  Society  of 
Antiquaries,  the  possessor  of  an  exceptional  store  of 
local  information,  who,  from  that  time  until  his  death  in 
1875,  was  one  of  my  most  valued  friends  and  correspon- 
dents. I  found  time,  also,  in  the  course  of  a  flying  trip 
through  Scotland,  to  pass  a  couple  of  days  with  Web- 
ster's friend,  the  nineteenth  Earl  of  MORTON,  at  Dal- 
mahoy  House,  near  Edinburgh.  Lady  Morton  and  her 
daughters  were  full  of  kindness ;  and  this  brief  experi- 
ence of  Scottish  hospitality  caused  me  additional  regret 
at  having  been  constrained  to  decline  an  invitation  from 
the  Duke  of  Richmond  to  Gordon  Castle,  and  from  the 
Earl  of  Aberdeen  to  Haddo  House. 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  53 

Everett  had  given  me  a  letter  to  Lord  ABERDEEN, 
who  gave  a  dinner  for  me  which  I  came  very  near  miss- 
ing. I  had  ventured  to  go  down  to  see  the  great 
Derby  race  on  the  same  day,  and  found  much  difficulty 
in  getting  back  in  season,  owing  to  the  crowd.  It  would 
have  been  a  serious  loss,  as  the  guests  included  Lord 
Canning,  Sir  James  Graham,  Lord  Ashburton,  Sir 
Kobert  Gordon,  Count  Jarnac,  the  French  Minister,  and 
other  persons  of  note. 

Lord  Aberdeen  struck  me  as  one  of  the  most  sensible 
men  in  England,  —  grave,  thoughtful,  prudent,  with  no 
pretension  or  ostentation.  He  and  Everett  had  a  great 
liking  for  one  another,  and  he  sat  to  Harding  for  a  por- 
trait, which  was  in  Everett's  library  till  his  death. 
With  his  youngest  son,  the  well-known  Sir  Arthur 
Gordon,  recently  created  Lord  Stanmore,  I  had  some 
pleasant  intercourse  at  a  later  period. 

Pakenham,  then  British  Minister  at  Washington,  had 
given  me  a  letter  to  the  third  Earl  of  ST.  GERMANS, 
a  former  Postmaster-General  in  Peel's  Cabinet,  pre- 
viously associated  with  a  mission  of  mercy  to  Spain  in 
1835,  when  he  most  successfully  negotiated  with  the 
two  parties  to  the  civil  war  for  an  exchange  of  pris- 
oners, and  was  the  immediate  instrument  of  saving  the 
lives  of  others  at  the  peril  of  his  own.  He  was  the 
lineal  descendant  of  that  great  parliamentary  leader, 
Sir  John  Eliot,  the  friend  of  Hampden,  of  whom  the 
late  John  Forster  wrote  so  instructive  a  biography,  by 
which  it  seems  that  Governor  Winthrop's  reasons  for 
coming  to  New  England  were  the  subject  of  considera- 


54  A   FRAGMENT 

tion  and  correspondence  between  Eliot  and  Hampden 
while  Eliot  was  imprisoned  in  the  Tower. 

I  remember  visiting  the  Tower  in  company  with 
Lady  St.  Germans  and  her  son  Granville  Eliot  (who 
fell  in  the  Crimean  campaign),  and  we  lingered  in  the 
room  where  this  great  martyr  of  bold  and  free  speech 
died.  Lady  St.  Germans  was  a  granddaughter  of  Lord 
Cornwallis,  and  one  day  when  I  had  been  dining  with 
her  husband  he  showed  me  the  sword  of  Tippoo  Saib, 
which  Cornwallis  captured  in  India,  —  adding  pleasantly 
that  he  was  not  able  to  show  me  the  sword  Cornwallis 
wore  at  Yorktown,  as  he  unfortunately  lost  it ! 

Lord  St.  Germans  was  subsequently  Lord-Lieutenant 
of  Ireland  and  Lord  Steward  of  the  Queen's  household, 
in  which  latter  capacity  he  accompanied  the  Prince  of 
Wales  to  the  United  States.  Nothing  could  exceed  his 
repeated  kindness  to  me  and  mine,  and  our  friendship 
ended  only  with  his  death  in  1877.  Lady  St.  Germans, 
a  most  amiable  and  excellent  woman,  died  on  the  very 
day  (it  has  been  said)  on  which  her  son's  regiment 
entered  London  in  triumph  on  its  return  from  the 
Crimea,  and  when  a  fresh  sense  of  her  bereavement 
was  forced  upon  her  already  shattered  health. 

My  passing  allusion  to  Sir  RICHARD  PAKENHAM  recalls 
our  intimacy  while  I  was  in  Congress  and  he  Minister 
at  Washington.  He  was  a  frank,  hearty,  honest  Irish- 
man, with  no  diplomatic  reserve  or  equivoque  about 
him,  with  no  superabundance  of  accomplishment,  but 
with  talent  and  experience  enough  to  do  his  work  ad- 
vantageously for  England  and  acceptably  for  our  gov- 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  55 

eminent.  His  predecessor  was  another  bachelor,  HENRY 
STEPHEN  Fox  (nephew  of  Charles  James  Fox),  whose 
eccentricities  were  the  laugh  of  Washington  when  I 
first  entered  Congress.  Rising  generally  when  other 
people  were  almost  ready  to  go  to  bed,  when  a  ceremony 
or  a  duty  compelled  him  to  an  earlier  appearance,  Fox 
was  like  an  owl  in  the  daytime.  "  How  strange,"  said 
he  to  Madame  Calderon,  one  morning  at  a  State 
funeral,  — "  how  strange  we  look  to  each  other  by 
daylight ! "  I  stood  near  him  at  the  inauguration  of 
President  William  Henry  Harrison  in  1841,  and  shall 
never  forget  how  like  a  figure  of  fun  he  looked,  with 
a  uniform  which  he  had  outgrown,  and  which  he  had 
probably  brought  from  Brazil,  his  white  cassimere 
trousers  barely  reaching  his  ankles,  and  his  chapeau  de 
bras  tawny  with  time  and  use !  As  Harrison  alluded  to 
foreign  nations,  Fox,  as  doyen  of  the  diplomatic  corps, 
advanced  slowly  toward  him ;  but  before  he  could  get 
near  enough  to  hear,  the  President  had  changed  his 
topic  to  "  our  brethren,  the  red  men."  The  expression, 
half  smile  and  half  chagrin,  which  came  over  Fox's  face 
at  that  moment,  as  he  fell  back  into  the  throng,  defies 
description.  His  debts  compelled  him  to  economy,  and 
he  rarely  gave  dinners.  A  year  or  two  before  I  knew 
him,  he  had  invited  a  large  party  to  his  house,  —  Mr. 
Clay,  Mr.  Calhoun,  Mr.  Webster,  and  all  the  giants  (for 
there  were  giants  in  those  days),  —  and  when  they 
were  all  assembled,  he  said,  "  Gentlemen,  now  be  good 
enough  to  put  on  your  hats  and  follow  me."  And  thus 
saying,  he  led  the  way  to  a  neighboring  eating-house ! 
But  he  was  an  agreeable  and  accomplished  man,  with  a 


56  A   FRAGMENT 

noble  head  and  a  ready  wit ;  and  nobody  could  have 
been  more  agreeable  than  he  was  at  a  little  dinner 
given  for  the  historian  Prescott  by  our  friend  Calderon 
de  la  Barca,  the  Spanish  Minister.  His  death  at 
Washington  from  an  overdose  of  opium  sufficiently 
revealed  the  secret  of  his  oddity, — if,  indeed,  it  had 
been  a  secret  to  any  one  who  saw  and  knew  him. 

Pakenhain  had  not  a  particle  of  Fox's  peculiarity, 
and  rendered  himself  all  the  more  acceptable  by  the 
contrast.  It  happened  that  he  was  in  Ireland  on  leave 
when  I  visited  Dublin  in  1847;  and  as  I  could  not 
accept  his  pressing  invitation  to  go  to  him  in  the 
country,  he  came  to  Dublin  and  spent  four  or  five 
days  with  me.  We  drove  to  Donnybrook  Fair 
together  in  a  jaunting  car,  and  the  next  day  to 
Castletown  (the  princely  seat  of  his  cousin,  Colonel 
Connolly),  and  the  day  after  drove  through  the 
Powerscourt  demesne  in  the  beautiful  county  Wicklow. 
We  dined  together,  too,  with  Lord  Clarendon,  then 
Lord-Lieutenant,  at  the  Vice-regal  Lodge  in  Phoenix 
Park,  and  at  Sir  Philip*  Crampton's  at  Lough  Bray. 
Thus  the  only  regret  I  had  at  being  unable  to  visit 
him  was  from  losing  the  promised  privilege  of  seeing 
Miss  Edgeworth,  the  authoress,  who  was  a  near 
neighbor  and  friend  of  his.  At  home  or  abroad,  at 
Washington  or  in  Dublin,  Sir  Richard  was  a  delightful 
companion,  and  his  constant  kindness  attached  me 
strongly  to  him. 

Nor  can  I  say  much  less  of  Sir  JOHN  CRAMPTON,  who 
succeeded  Sir  Richard,  and  who  was  the  son  of  Sir 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  57 

Philip,  my  host  at  Lough  Bray.  The  latter,  by  the 
way,  was  a  great  surgeon,  and  had  been  medical  adviser 
to  all  the  Lord-Lieutenants  for  nearly  half  a  century. 
Among  others  he  had  attended  the  Marquis  of  Welles- 
ley,  and  had  been  intimate  with  him  and  our  American 
Mrs.  Patterson  at  the  time  of  their  courtship  and  mar- 
riage. I  should  not  venture  to  put  on  paper  his 
account  of  their  love  passages,  which  were  at  once 
comic  and  pathetic.  Sir  Philip  looked  younger  than 
his  son,  whose  premature  white  hairs  when  he  came 
to  Washington  suggested  sixty  instead  of  forty.  The 
frost  was  only  on  the  outside,  however,  and  he  had  not 
a  little  amiability  as  well  as  ability. 

After  Crampton  came  Sir  HENRY  BULWER,  afterward 
Lord  Bailing,  the  very  impersonation  of  diplomacy,  — 
artful,  accomplished,  capable  of  intrigue,  not  afflicted 
with  scruples,  though  a  valetudinarian  in  all  other 
respects ;  a  man  of  real  talent  and  of  many  agreeable 
qualities,  a  charming  writer  and  a  good  speaker,  whose 
compliments  at  public  dinners  were  always  gracefully 
turned. 

After  Bulwer  came  Lord  NAPIER,  not  inferior  to  Bul- 
wer  in  the  arts  of  diplomacy,  superior  to  him  in  the 
graces,  and  of  a  personal  figure  and  address  quite  fasci- 
nating. He  was  a  man  of  great  elegance,  and  rendered 
himself  exceedingly  agreeable  in  social  life.  His  little 
speech  at  the  Harvard  festival,  while  I  was  President  of 
the  Alumni,  was  one  of  the  most  felicitous  I  ever  heard. 
His  admiration  for  Washington  Allston's  coloring  was 


58  A   FRAGMENT 

unbounded.  He  told  me  repeatedly  that  no  other 
living  artist  of  any  country  could  have  painted  such 
pictures;  and  he  tried  hard  to  persuade  the  British 
Government  to  purchase  one  for  the  National  Gallery 
in  London.  Lord  Napier  had  himself  written  a  book 
on  modern  Italian  art,  of  which  I  have  a  copy,  though 
not  of  his  gift,  for  he  said  he  was  ashamed  of  it,  and 
would  not  let  me  see  it.  He  gave  me,  however,  an 
interesting  biography  of  his  ancestor,  the  great  Master 
of  Napier  and  author  of  Logarithms,  by  his  cousin  the 
late  Mark  Napier.  Lord  Napier  was  a  delightful  com- 
panion during  a  summer  which  I  passed  with  him  at 
the  Nahant  hotel,  where  I  formed  the  acquaintance  of 
his  lovely  wife,  —  one  of  the  most  saintly  persons  I 
have  ever  known,  as  full  of  goodness  of  heart  as  of 
grace  and  sweetness  of  manner,  and  whose  image  will 
always  have*  a  place  in  my  little  gallery  of  cherished 
memories. 

% 

The  Napiers  were  followed  by  Lord  LYONS,  an 
excellent  man  of  business,  a  bachelor,  and  wholly 
wedded  to  his  profession,  —  a  plain,  blunt,  genial 
Englishman,  with  not  a  little  touch  of  the  sailor 
manner,  which  he  may  have  caught  from  the  Admiral 
his  father.  I  had  long  been  out  of  Congress  when 
he  was  at  Washington,  but  met  him  frequently  else- 
where, and  dined  at  least  once  with  him  there  at  his 
own  table,  when  Everett  and  I  went  on  to  present  a 
memorial  for  peace  just  before  the  Civil  War.  I  dined 
with  him  afterward  in  Paris,  where  he  was  long 
Ambassador,  and  in  London,  after  he  had  retired 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  59 

from  that  post.  An  ancestor  of  his,  Capt.  Henry 
Lyons,  of  Antigua,  married  a  granddaughter  of  Gov- 
ernor Winthrop's  son  Samuel,  who  was  himself  Deputy- 
Governor  of  Antigua,  so  that  we  called  ourselves 
kinsmen. 

He  was,  if  I  mistake  not,  a  minister  of  more  practical 
ability  than  any  England  had  sent  to  America  since  Mr. 
STRATFORD  CANNING,  the  late  Lord  Stratford  de  Red- 
cliife,  whom  I  also  knew  and  with  whom  I  remember 
dining  in  1867.  He  then  had  a  great  desire  to  talk 
about  his  old  friend  John  Quincy  Adams,  who  was 
our  Secretary  of  State  while  he  was  Minister  at 
Washington.  A  man  of  grand  presence,  somewhat 
stern  and  stately,  he  knew  how  to  unbend  gracefully, 
and  was  long  one  of  the  most  impressive  and  interest- 
ing figures  in  the  House  of  Lords.  The  recent  bio- 
graphy of  him,  by  Stanley  Lane  Poole,  does  no  more 
than  justice  to  his  really  great  career  and  character, 
and,  as  Dean  Stanley  truly  said  in  a  sermon  in  West- 
minster Abbey  the  day  after  his  funeral:  "No  one 
could  enter  into  his  presence,  either  as  he  sat  on  what 
may  be  called  his  throne  at  Constantinople,  or  during 
the  long  years  of  his  dignified  retirement,  without 
feeling  that  they  had  seen  a  king  of  men." 

Lord  Lyons  was  succeeded  at  Washington  by  Sir 
FREDERICK  BRUCE,  an  amiable  and  excellent  man, 
whose  diplomatic  career  was  cut  short  by  his  much- 
regretted  death  in  Boston,  after  a  short  illness.  I 
had  previously  known  his  elder  brothers :  Lord  ELGIN, 
when  Governor-General  of  Canada,  and  General  ROBERT 


60  A   FRAGMENT 

BRUCE,  when  head  of  the  Prince  of  Wales's  household. 
All  three  brothers  made  a  very  agreeable  impression 
in  society,  both  at  home  and  abroad. 

Of  English  men  of  letters  I  have  already  mentioned 
Rogers  and  Wordsworth,  Hallam  and  Milman,  but 
I  must  not  forget  Earl  STANHOPE,  the  historian,  — 
Lord  Mahon,  as  he  was  when  I  first  knew  him,  —  a 
laborious  student  and  an  earnest  seeker  after  truth, 
whose  works  will  always  be  consulted  for  their  substan- 
tial merits,  and  as  valuable  authorities  on  the  subjects 
to  which  they  relate.  My  relations  with  him  and  his 
charming  wife  were  particularly  pleasant,  and  I  was 
among  the  many  who  mourned  the  untimely  death  of 
his  attractive  daughter,  the  late  Lady  Beauchamp. 

At  a  breakfast  at  Stanhope's  one  of  the  guests  was 
THACKERAY,  whom  I  had  known  in  America,  when  he 
was  more  than  once  at  my  house.  I  always  associate 
him  with  a  visit  I  paid  my  dear  friend,  John  Pendleton 
Kennedy,  in  Washington,  where  he  was  then  Secretary 
of  the  Navy,  and  while  Washington  Irving  was  my 
only  fellow-guest.  One  dinner  at  Kennedy's,  with 
Irving,  Thackeray,  and  Tom  Corwin,  lingers  in  my 
memory.  Wit,  humor,  anecdote,  reminiscence,  and 
sparkling  merriment  abounded  to  overflowing.  Thack- 
eray was  approaching  his  end  when  I  met  him  at 
Lord  Stanhope's,  and  ominous  shadows  were  gathering 
over  his  brow.  He  apologized  for  not  calling  upon 
me  on  account  of  infirmities,  but  begged  me  to  come  to 
see  him  before  I  left  London.  I  did  so,  and  found 
him,  as  he  said,  "taking  his  first  tea  and  toast  for 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  61 

many  days."  His  daughter  was  ministering  to  him, 
and  he  seemed  really  ill.  His  somewhat  cynical  tem- 
perament was  not,  however,  wholly  subdued.  "Do 
you  know  an  American  named  Allibone  ? "  said  he. 
"  He  has  sent  me  a  big  Dictionary,  and  wants  me  to 
acknowledge  it ;  but  I  have  not  done  it,  and  do  not 
mean  to."  I  told  him  I  knew  Dr.  Allibone  well,  and 
valued  him  highly;  that  his  Dictionary  of  Authors 
was  a  work  of  great  labor,  and  as  useful  in  its  way 
as  the  Dictionnaire  des  Contemporains  of  Vapereau ;  and 
that  the  author  was,  like  Vapereau,  one  of  the  most 
obliging  of  men.  "I  thank  you,  I  thank  you,"  said 
he,  instantly,  "for  this  explanation.  I  will  write  to 
him  at  once,  and  make  amends  for  my  neglect."  And 
he  did  write  to  him  in  a  cordial  and  complimentary 
style,  as  I  subsequently  learned  from  Allibone  him- 
self. Thackeray's  cynicism  was  only  skin-deep.  He 
had  a  large  heart  below. 

I  did  not  meet  DICKENS  in  England,  though  I  had 
seen  much  of  him  at  Washington  during  his  first  visit 
to  America.1  He  then  brought  me  a  letter  of  intro- 
duction from  Mr.  Everett,  our  Minister  to  England, 
while  I  was  keeping  house  at  Washington  with  Kennedy. 
Kennedy  and  I  called  at  once  and  asked  him  to  dine ; 
but  he  had  made  his  engagements  long  before  his 
arrival  at  Washington,  and  was  obliged  to  refuse  all 
new  invitations.  He  thus  refused  to  dine  at  the 
President's  and  at  Ex-President  John  Quincy  Adams's, 
so  that  we  lesser  notabilities  had  no  cause  to  complain. 

1  I  was  in  Europe  when  he  came  last. 


62  A   FRAGMENT 

I  dined  with  him  at  Mayor  Seaton's,  when  Mrs.  Madison, 
Clay,  and  Webster  were  among  the  guests,  and  after- 
ward took  him  and  Mrs.  Dickens  to  the  President's 
reception,  where  we  revolved  around  the  East  Room 
together,  Dickens  on  one  side  of  me  and  his  wife  on 
the  other,  and  they  were  the  observed  of  all  observers. 
As  we  were  leaving,  the  colored  drivers  on  the  portico 
shouted,  "Lord  Boz's  carriage!  Lord  Boz's  carriage  !  " 
to  our  great  amusement.  John  Quincy  Adams  did 
not  appreciate  Dickens.  He  told  me  at  his  own  table 
that,  understanding  Dickens  had  letters  to  him,  he  had 
been  trying  to  prepare  himself  to  meet  him,  and  at 
his  daughter-in-law's  suggestion  had  taken  up  the 
"  Pickwick  Papers."  "  But,"  said  Mr.  Adams,  "  I  could 
not  get  beyond  a  few  chapters.  He  has  a  wonderful 
faculty  of  description  ;  but  the  difficulty  is,  the  things 
are  not  worth  describing ! "  And  then  Mr.  Adams 
launched  out  into  unbounded  praise  of  Fielding,  saying 
that  there  was  no  novel  like  "  Tom  Jones." 

One  day  —  it  was  Saturday  —  while  Dickens  was  in 
"Washington,  Mr.  Adams  turned  to  me  and  said,  "  I 
want  you  to  do  me  a  favor,  Mr.  Winthrop.  You,  I 
know,  do  not  go  to  dinners,  and  I  do  not  give  them, 
on  Sundays.  But  Mr.  Dickens,  having  refused  my 
invitation  for  a  dinner  next  week,  has  written  to  say 
that  he  wishes  the  privilege  of  coming  to  luncheon 
with  his  wife  to-morrow  at  two  o'clock.  Now,  I  have 
no  idea  of  meeting  him  alone,  and  I  want  you  and  Mr. 
Saltonstall  to  come  to  my  aid."  So  we  both  went  at 
the  hour  named.  Mrs.  Adams  had  ordered  an  elaborate 
lunch,  and  courses  were  served  as  for  a  dinner.  Mr. 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  63 

and  Mrs.  Dickens  not  only  came  late,  but  before  the 
meats  had  been  finished,  said  they  must  go  home  and 
dress  for  a  dinner  at  the  house  of  a  translator  in  the 
State  Department;  and  the  table  of  the  Ex-President 
was  broken  up  accordingly  !  It  was  a  curious  instance 
of  the  infelicity  of  the  "  previous  engagements  "  into 
which  Mr.  Dickens  had  been  betrayed  by  officious 
friends.  He  seemed  rather  to  prefer  dining  with 
reporters  and  newspaper  men  than  with  persons  in 
official  position,  and  he  occasionally  exhibited  a 
bnisqiierie  and  waywardness  —  perhaps  resulting  from 
the  flattery  he  had  received  at  Boston  and  New  York  — 
which  led  him  to  put  on  airs  in  the  company  of  men 
entitled  to  his  respect.  But  his  marvellous  genius, 
devoted  as  it  so  often  was  to  the  cause  of  philanthropic 
reform,  is  enough  to  secure  oblivion  for  all  his  infir- 
mities, —  more  especially  when  we  remember  how 
many  of  his  best  characters  we  should  have  lost  if  at 
one  period  of  his  life  he  had  not  been  fond  of  low 
company. 

I  have  already  mentioned  hearing  an  eloquent 
speech  from  MACAULAY  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  I  remember  sitting  next  but  one  to  him  at  a 
dinner  at  Van  de  Weyer's,  the  Belgian  Minister,  and 
had  the  full  benefit  of  his  wonderful  flow  of  conver- 
sation,—  I  might  better  say,  soliloquy.  When  I  saw 
him  long  afterward,  he  had  become  a  peer  and  was 
quite  retired  from  politics.  Calling  on  him  at  Holly 
Lodge,  Kensington,  with  a  note  from  Everett,  he  pro- 
fessed to  remember  me  perfectly,  but  he  was  suffering 


64  A   FRAGMENT 

from  an  asthmatic  cough,  and  had  a  swollen  look  which 
suggested  dropsy.  His  magisterial  tone  and  a  certain 
puffy,  panting  respiration  recalled  the  accounts  of  Dr. 
Johnson.  Yet  he  was  kind  and  cordial,  regretting  that 
he  was  just  going  out  of  town,  and  making  me  promise 
that  I  would  come  to  see  him  again  in  the  spring, 
on  my  return  from  the  Continent.  I  had  a  strong  pre- 
sentiment that  I  should  not  see  him  again  ;  and  three 
or  four  months  afterward,  while  I  was  in  Paris,  the 
telegraph  announced  his  sudden  death.  An  unfinished 
letter  to  Everett  was  found  in  the  pocket  of  the  coat 
he  had  worn  last.  The  two  men  had  many  gifts  and 
greatnesses  in  common.  Everett's  fame  will  last 
longest  as  a  brilliant  orator ;  Macaulay's  as  a  magnifi- 
cent writer,  almost  a  second  Burke.  His  Essays  will 
be  read  even  longer  than  his  History,  and  with  less 
distrust. 

BROWNING  I  have  met  repeatedly  in  London  and  in 
Rome,  dining  with  him  at  his  own  table  and  at  other 
people's  tables.  Everywhere  he  was  pleasant  and 
cheery,  but  he  had  but  little  of  the  poet  in  social  life. 
He  certainly  reserved  his  brilliancy  and  his  profound- 
ness for  his  verses.  His  wife  I  saw  only  once ;  but  an 
hour  with  her  in  her  own  charming  apartment  left  an 
impression  which  I  can  neither  forget  nor  describe. 

Of  another  hour  I  can  recall  more.  It  was  with 
WALTER  SAVAGE  LANDOR,  at  his  residence  in  Florence, 
in  February,  1860.  A  grander  old  man  I  have  rarely, 
if  ever,  seen.  He  talked  much  about  poetry  and  the 
great  poets  of  the  world.  He  ranked  them  in  the 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  65 

following  order :  Shakspeare,  Milton,  Homer,  ^Eschylus. 
Not  a  word  about  Dante  !  Passing  to  other  characters, 
he  placed  Washington  at  the  head  of  all  men,  and 
added  that  next  to  him,  in  America,  was  John  Win- 
throp.  Of  course  he  touched  my  heart,  both  as  to 
Washington  and  Winthrop.  But  I  was  amazed  at  his 
knowing  anything  about  the  latter,  until  he  told  me 
that  he  had  held  much  correspondence  with  my  old 
friend  James  Savage,  and  that  incidentally  he  had 
become  familiar  with  Mr.  Savage's  edition  of  the 
Governor's  journal. 

Of  JOHN  KENYON,  also,  a  name  almost  forgotten, 
but  worthy  of  being  recalled,  I  must  say  a  word. 
Ticknor  had  given  me  a  letter  to  him,  and  nothing 
could  exceed  his  kindness.  His  "  Rhymed  Plea  for 
Tolerance,"  and  his  "  Day  at  Tivoli,"  though  praised  in 
"  Blackwood  "  and  by  Prescott  in  the  "  North  American 
Review,"  will  hardly  secure  him  a  high  place  among  the 
poets  of  his  period ;  but  the  little  volumes  were  pretty 
keepsakes,  and  his  friends  were  always  glad  to  receive 
and  read  them.  I  certainly  was.  Meantime  he  was 
fond  of  gathering  the  choicest  literary  guests  around 
his  hospitable  board,  and  his  breakfasts  and  dinners 
almost  rivalled  Rogers's.  One  of  them  cost  me  a  great 
disappointment.  He  had  made  it  especially  for  me  to 
meet  Carlyle ;  but  at  the  last  moment,  when  it  was  too 
late  to  fill  the  place,  —  if  such  a  place  could  be  filled, 
—  illness  or  caprice  prevented  Carlyle  from  keeping 
his  engagement,  and  so  I  never  saw  the  old  cynic.  In 
a  letter  to  me  long  ago  from  the  first  Lady  Ashburton, 

5 


66  A   FRAGMENT 

she  said :  "  Carlyle  and  Emerson  have  met,  but  have 
discovered  that  they  agree  in  nothing  except  in  their 
admiration  for  each  other."  I  am  afraid  that  if  Carlyle 
and  I  had  met,  we  should  hardly  have  reached  admira- 
tion on  either  side.  Yet  his  "  Life  of  John  Sterling," 
and  his  "  French  Revolution,"  and  his  "  Life  and 
Letters  of  Cromwell"  are  admirable  in  their  way. 
Kenyon  had  a  large  fortune,  and  was  munificent  in 
aiding  poor  authors. 

Grote  and  Bulwer-Lytton  I  knew  but  slightly ; 
Darwin  and  Ruskin  not  at  all,  though  Canon  Farrar 
was  kind  enough  to  take  me  to  the  funeral  of  Darwin 
in  Westminster  Abbey.  With  Lockhart,  the  younger 
Lytton,  John  Forster,  and  Samuel  Warren,  Q.  C.,  the 
genial  but  now  almost  forgotten  author  of  "  Ten  Thou- 
sand a  Year,"  I  was  well  acquainted  at  different 
periods.  Of  Froude,  Kingsley,  Tyndall,  and  Matthew 
Arnold,  I  saw  little  in  their  own  country,  though  they 
all  dined  with  me  in  America.  To  Henry  Reeve,  the 
accomplished  editor  of  the  "Edinburgh  Review,"  and  to 
John  Murray,  the  prince  of  publishers,  I  am  indebted  for 
many  kind  attentions.  But  the  English  man  of  letters 
whom  I  knew  longest  and  best  was  RICHARD  MONCKTOX 
MILNES,  Lord  Houghton.  I  remember  breakfasting 
with  him  in  1847,  when  Prince  Louis  Napoleon,  then 
an  exile  in  London,  and  Richard  Cobden  were  among 
the  guests.  Houghton  told  me  long  afterward,  that 
out  of  the  intercourse  between  Louis  Napoleon  and 
Cobden  at  that  breakfast  came  the  commercial  treaty 
between  France  and  England  which  Cobden  negotiated 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  67 

with  the  Emperor  in  1860.  I  remember  dining  with 
Houghton  in  the  last-named  year,  on  the  day  of  the 
first  great  Volunteer  review  by  the  Queen,  when  Earl 
De  Grey,  then  Secretary  of  War,  under  whose  super- 
vision the  review  had  been  arranged  and  the  volunteers 
organized,  was  one  of  the  guests.  Had  he  been  as 
successful  in  arranging  the  terms  of  the  treaty  of 
Washington  with  reference  to  the  Alabama  Claims, 
so  as  to  avoid  the  deplorable  misunderstanding  which 
subsequently  turned  a  great  act  of  peace  into  a  fresh 
cause  of  contention,  he  would  better  have  deserved 
his  newer  title  of  Marquis  of  Ripon.  I  remember 
another  dinner  at  Houghton's  in  1867,  when  I  sat  next 
to  Gladstone,  and  next  but  one  to  John  Bright,  and 
greatly  enjoyed  their  brilliant  conversation.  He  gave 
me  on  that  occasion  a  photograph  of  the  little  church 
at  Austerfield,  with  the  baptismal  record  of  Governor 
Bradford,  and  seemed  proud  of  being  lord  of  the  manor 
of  that  cradle  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers. 

Of  famous  English  lawyers  I  have  known  few ;  but 
I  might  have  added  to  my  reminiscences  of  Brougham 
and  Lyndhurst  that  I  had  been  well  acquainted  with 
one  of  their  great  rivals  at  the  bar  and  successors  on 
the  woolsack,  John,  Lord  CAMPBELL,  not  the  least 
noticeable  incident  of  whose  remarkable  career  is  that 
he  was  educated  for  the  Presbyterian  ministry.  I 
knew  him,  however,  when  he  was  only  Chancellor  of 
the  Duchy  of  Lancaster,  with  a  seat  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  before  the  publication  of  any  of  those 
biographies  of  Chief-Justices  and  Chancellors,  with 


68  A   FRAGMENT 

which  his  name  will  always  be  associated,  and  which 
have  been  the  subject  of  so  much  criticism.  In  later 
years,  I  have  repeatedly  had  •  pleasant  intercourse  with 
members  of  his  immediate  family. 

Distinguished  members  of  the  medical  profession 
often  play  an  important  part  in  London  society.  I 
recall  pleasant  dinners  in  1847,  at  Sir  James  Clark's 
(then  the  Queen's  leading  physician),  and  at  Mr. 
(afterward  Sir)  William  Lawrence's,  the  distinguished 
surgeon  and  man  of  science.  This  last  was  at  Ealing 
Park,  near  London,  where  Mrs.  Lawrence's  collection 
of  orchids  was  one  of  the  marvels  of  horticulture  at 
that  period. 

With  Dr.  (afterward  Sir)  HENRY  HOLLAND  I  formed 
an  agreeable  intimacy  when  he  was  first  in  this  country, 
which  lasted  until  his  death  in  1873.  His  wife,  the 
daughter  of  the  famous  wit,  Rev.  Sydney  Smith,  added 
not  a  little  to  the  attractions  of  his  well-remembered 
home  in  Brook  Street  when  I  first  knew  it.  I  recall 
there  a  marble  bust  of  Sydney's  elder  brother,  Robert 
Smith,  familiarly  called  Bobus  Smith,  whom  Dr.  Hol- 
land pronounced  "  the  most  accomplished  scholar  and 
the  most  profound  thinker  "  he  had  ever  known.  His 
name  was  then  new  to  me,  and,  of  course,  made  the 
stronger  impression.  Before  my  second  visit  to  Eng- 
land, in  1859,  Dr.  Holland  had  become  a  baronet.  He 
was  a  great  traveller.  Though  devoted  to  the  practice 
of  his  profession,  he  found  time  in  his  midsummer  and 
autumn  vacations  for  seeing  many  lands ;  and  at  the 
end  of  his  long  life  he  had  left  hardly  any  place  of 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  69 

note  unvisited.  His  "  Recollections  of  a  Past  Life " 
contain  the  story  of  his  various  journeys  and  voyages, 
year  after  year,  with  most  interesting  accounts  of 
places  and  persons.  Hardly  any  other  man  of  his 
time  could  have  met  and  known  so  many  people  worth 
meeting  and  knowing.  Sir  Henry  gave  me  an  advance 
copy  of  this  little  volume  in  1868,  before  it  was 
enlarged  and  published,  and  when  he  had  printed  only 
a  few  copies  for  his  family  and  friends.  I  remember 
well  how  much  it  was  enjoyed  by  Ticknor  and  Dr. 
Jacob  Bigelow  and  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  and  others 
of  my  friends  to  whom  I  loaned  it  on  my  return  home, 
—  one  of  whom  returned  it  with  a  letter  saying  that 
before  returning  it  "  he  had  revelled  in  a  second  read- 
ing of  it."  Sir  Henry  had  crossed  the  Atlantic  seven 
times  before  his  death,  and  had  visited  successively 
almost  all  parts  of  our  land,  —  "  travelling,"  as  he  said, 
"  over  nearly  twenty-three  thousand  miles  of  the 
American  continent."  I  was  a  fellow-passenger  with 
him  in  1869,  and  found  him  a  brave  and  delightful 
companion  in  storm  as  well  as  in  sunshine.  He  spent 
many  days  of  the  last  week  of  this  last  visit  to 
America  under  my  roof  at  Brookline,  —  coming  over 
to  me  from  a  briefer  visit  to  our  friend  the  late  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  at  Quincy.  He  was  a  fine  scholar,  and 
always  travelled  with  a  volume  or  two  of  the  classics 
in  his  bag,  to  occupy  and  divert  his  spare  moments. 
As  he  bade  me  good-by  for  the  last  time,  he  said 
quietly  that  he  had  left  a  little  "  Virgil "  on  the  table 
in  his  chamber,  which  had  been  one  of  his  pet  travel- 
ling companions  all  the  world  over,  for  many,  many 


70  A   FRAGMENT 

years,  and  that  he  had  not  room  for  it  in  his  bag  any 
longer.  I  might  say  of  it,  as  of  its  owner,  "  Multum 
ille  et  terris  jactatus  et  alto."  It  bears  the  marks  of 
hard  usage,  but  is  not  the  less  interesting  on  that 
account  With  his  eldest  son,  the  statesman  and 
cabinet  minister,  now  Lord  Knutsford,  and  his  attrac- 
tive wife,  a  favorite  niece  of  Lord  Macaulay,  I  have 
had  some  pleasant  intercourse  in  later  years. 

Of  English  prime  ministers  of  the  last  half-century, 
Peel,  Aberdeen,  and  Derby  I  have  already  mentioned. 
With  Lords  RUSSELL  and  BEACONSFIELD  my  acquaint- 
ance was  but  slight.  I  never  heard  either  of  them 
make  a  speech  of  any  importance,  but  I  have  enjoyed 
several  of  the  latter's  witty  novels.  Lords  PALMER- 
STON  and  SALISBURY  I  knew  better,  having  lunched 
with  the  latter  at  his  famous  seat  of  Hatfield,  and 
having  repeatedly  attended  the  former's  Saturday 
evening  receptions.  His  cordial,  jaunty  air  was  full 
of  fascination,  and  I  could  quite  understand  the  social 
as  well  as  political  influence  exercised  by  Lady  Palmer- 
ston  and  himself.  He  had  the  commanding  presence 
and  unfailing  tact  of  Henry  Clay,  with,  of  course, 
something  more  of  the  polish  of  a  trained  courtier. 
An  intense  Briton,  he  cared  little  for  the  rights  of 
other  countries  so  he  could  uphold  or  increase  the 
power  and  prestige  of  his  own.  My  interest  in 
meeting  him  was  enhanced  by  the  recollection  that  he 
was  the  last  male  representative  of  the  most  distin- 
guished branch  of  that  once  numerous  family  of 
Temple,  another  branch  of  which  was  represented  in 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  1 

the  last  century  by  my  maternal  grandfather,  Sir  John 
Temple.  A  niece  of  the  last-named  was  the  grand- 
mother of  an  eminent  Englishman  who  is  not  yet 
prime  minister,  but  who  would  do  honor  to  that 
exalted  station,  —  the  present  Marquis  of  DUFFERIN, 
who  has  gone  through  a  succession  of  great  offices 
and  made  a  distinguished  mark  in  each  one  of  them. 
Wherever  and  whenever  England  has  looked  for  a 
man  to  meet  a  sudden  exigency,  —  whether  as  Viceroy 
of  India  or  ambassador  at  different  courts,  —  she  has 
called  upon  him,  and  never  called  in  vain.  As  a 
speaker  and  writer,  he  has  not  a  few  of  the  charms 
of  his  great-grandfather,  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan. 
His  "  Letters  from  High  Latitudes "  was  one  of  the 
wittiest  books  of  its  day ;  and  his  social  attractions 
have  rendered  him  a  delightful  companion  wherever 
he  has  been  known  on  either  continent.  I  recall  with 
pleasure  a  visit  of  several  days  which  he  and  Lady 
Dufferin  paid  me  at  Brookline  when  he  was  Governor- 
General  of  Canada,  and  I  have  often  enjoyed  his 
society  in  London. 

Of  the  new  prime  minister,  Lord  ROSEBERY,  too,  I 
have  seen  something  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean,  but  it 
was  at  an  early  period  of  his  life  when  so  distinguished 
a  future  could  hardly  have  been  confidently  predicted 
for  him.  His  illustrious  predecessor,  GLADSTONE,  I 
have  been  privileged  to  meet  often,  either  at  his  own 
table  or  at  the  tables  of  others.  I  doubt  if  any  man 
I  ever  met  has  impressed  me  more  by  the  wealth  of 
his  accomplishments,  by  the  charms  of  his  conversa- 
tion, and  by  a  certain  transparency  of  character,  than 


72  A   FRAGMENT 

Gladstone.  Yet  it  is  often  complained  that  no  one 
can  quite  see  through  him ;  and  it  must  be  confessed 
that  the  clearness  of  his  ideas  is  sometimes  obscured 
by  the  exuberance  of  his  vocabulary. 

The  most  inA^ing  speech  I  ever  heard  him  make 
was  at  an  evening  -meeting  of  the  Society  of  Antiqua- 
ries. Lord  Stanhope  (then  President  of  that  Society) 
had  given  a  little  dinner  at  which  Gladstone,  the  Duke 
of  Argyll,  Dr.  Schliemann  the  explorer,  Longfellow,  and 
I  were  among  the  guests.  After  our  adjournment  to 
Burlington  House,  Schliemann  proceeded  to  give  a  very 
graphic  account  of  his  then  recent  discoveries,  illus- 
trating them  with  maps  prepared  for  the  occasion. 
The  subject  was  at  once  familiar  and  fascinating  to 
Gladstone,  who  rose  after  Schliemann  had  finished  and 
spoke  for  nearly  an  hour,  delighting  all  who  listened 
to  him.  His  has  indeed  been  a  wonderful  career ;  but 
while  no  one  can  have  beheld  without  a  feeling  of 
admiration  the  physical  and  intellectual  vigor  which 
has  enabled  him  till  now  to  bear  the  brunt  of  parlia- 
mentary warfare,  some  of  us,  on  the  other  hand,  may 
be  inclined  to  doubt  whether  his  fame  would  not  have 
been  as  great,  or  greater,  if  he  had  retired  earlier 
from  politics,  and  devoted  the  remainder  of  his  life 
to  literature. 

In  running  my  eye  over  these  desultory  but  by 
no  means  exhaustive  reminiscences,  I  find  myself  con- 
tinually reminded  of  other  valued  friends  of  different 
periods,  —  such,  for  instance,  as  Dr.  VAUGHAN,  long 
Master  of  the  Temple  and  now  Dean  of  Llandaff,  and 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  73 

good  Dean  HOWSON  of  Chester,  and  the  lamented 
Principal  TULLOCII  of  St.  Andrews,  —  while  I  am  con- 
scious that  still  other  names,  to  which  I  should  like  to 
have  made  passing  allusion,  will  not  occur  to  me  until 
too  late.  I  feel,  however,  that  it  is  only  grateful  to 
devote  a  line  to  that  kindest  of  hosts,  THOMAS  BARING, 
M.  P.  (Tom  Baring,  as  he  was  so  generally  called),  long 
senior  partner  of  the  great  house  of  that  name,  who 
might  have  been  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  if  he 
had  chosen.  Nor  should  I  forget  that  accomplished 
scholar,  the  most  amiable  and  unpretending  of  men, 
the  seventh  Duke  of  DEVONSHIRE,  under  whose  aus- 
pices as  Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Cambridge  I 
received  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws  in  1874,  in 
company  with  Sir  Bartle  Frere,  Lord  Chief  Justice 
Cockburn,  and  Lord  Wolseley.  His  eldest  son,  the 
present  Duke,  a  prime  minister  of  the  future,  I  also 
knew  under  his  former  title  of  HARTINGTON,  and  have 
since  had  occasion  to  realize  how  much  ability  and 
patriotic  purpose  lie  concealed  under  his  apathetic 
manner  and  hesitating  delivery.  A  younger  brother 
of  the  last-named,  Lord  FREDERICK  CAVENDISH,  I 
knew  much  better,  and  there  still  lingers  in  my  ears 
the  cry  of  the  newsboys  under  my  window  in  London, 
in  1882,  announcing  his  shameful  murder  by  Irish 
assassins,  —  the  most  brutal  political  crime  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  the  untimely  ending  of  a  career 
of  promise. 

If  I  have  said  nothing  of  three  other  English  states- 
men of  whom  I  have  seen  something  at  different 
times,  —  two  of  them  the  foremost  debaters  of  their 


74  A    FRAGMENT 

day  in  the  Commons  (Sir  WILLIAM  HARCOURT  and 
Mr.  CHAMBERLAIN),  the  other  a  useful  member  of  both 
houses  of  Parliament  in  succession,  and  justly  esteemed 
for  his  scientific  attainments  and  rare  social  gifts 
(Lord  PLAYFAIR),  —  it  is  because  they  have  all  three 
had  the  good  taste  to  marry  Massachusetts  wives,  and 
their  characters  and  careers  are  as  familiar  in  this 
country  as  in  their  own. 

I  was  first  presented  at  Court  in  1847.  Mr.  Ban- 
croft, our  Minister,  was  unfortunately  taken  ill  a  few 
days  before  the  Drawing-Eoom,  and  I  accompanied 
Mr.  Brodhead  and  Mr.  Moran,  his  secretaries,  having 
been  admitted  by  Lord  Palmerston  to  the  diplomatic 
circle,  where  VAN  DE  WEYER,  the  Belgian  Minister, 
took  me  kindly  in  charge.  After  making  my  bow,  I 
was  thus  privileged  to  remain  in  the  Court  circle,  and 
witness  the  presentations  from  beginning  to  end.  The 
Queen  was  then  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  youth  and 
health,  and  was  surrounded  by  all  the  beauty  of  her 
Court,  —  the  Duchess  of  Sutherland,  the  Marchioness 
of  Douro,  and  Lady  Jocelyn  among  the  most  conspi- 
cuous. Prince  Albert  was  at  her  side,  and  the  young 
Grand  Duke  Constantine  of  Russia  near  him;  while 
the  old  Duke  of  Wellington  was  not  far  off.  It  was 
a  splendid  scene.  Soon  afterward  I  was  at  a  ball  at 
Buckingham  Palace;  and  before  leaving  London,  I 
attended  the  Birthday  Drawing-Room,  and  was  again 
witness  to  the  grace  and  dignity  of  the  Queen's 
manner.  But  the  best  opportunity  I  had  of  seeing 
and  hearing  her  was  in  the  House  of  Lords,  when  she 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  75 

prorogued  Parliament  in  person.  Nothing  could  have 
been  more  brilliant  than  that  occasion,  —  the  peers  in 
their  robes,  the  peeresses  in  all  their  jewels,  floor  and 
galleries  crowded  with  all  the  distinction  and  beauty 
of  the  realm,  the  Queen  herself  in  her  state  attire, 
with  a  crown  upon  her  head.  But  more  impressive 
than  anything  else  was  the  distinct  articulation  and 
exquisite  voice  with  which  she  read  her  speech. 
Fanny  Kemble  in  Portia  was  not  more  effective.  The 
whole  scene  was  dramatic,  and  no  part  could  have 
been  better  played  than  that  of  her  Majesty;  while 
the  solemnity  and  sincerity  of  her  tone  sufficiently 
evinced  that  she  was  not  playing  a  part  at  all,  but 
discharging  a  duty  with  simple,  unconscious  earnest- 
ness. 

Thirteen  years  afterward  I  was  at  Court  again,  with 
our  Minister,  Mr.  Dallas.  The  Queen  and  the  Prince 
Consort  had  lost  the  freshness  of  youth,  and  gave  plain 
indication  that  the  cares  of  royalty  had  not  weighed 
upon  them  lightly. 

Seven  years  later  still,  I  accompanied  Mr.  Adams 
on  his  last  attendance  at  a  Drawing-Room.  But  there 
was  no  Queen,  and  no  Prince  Consort.  The  good  and 
wise  Prince  had  been  dead  for  five  or  six  years,  and 
her  Majesty  had  not  emerged  from  her  long  mourning 
for  him.  Two  of  her  daughters,  with  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  took  her  place.  The  ceremony  was  cold  and 
brief,  and  the  Court  very  thinly  attended.  A  greater 
contrast  to  the  Drawing-Room  of  1847  could  not  have 
been  imagined.  My  own  old  Court  dress,  reappearing 
at  the  end  of  twenty  years,  seemed  to  me  the  only  re- 


76  A   FRAGMENT 

minder  of  my  first  presentation.  But  I  was  glad  to 
have  accompanied  Mr.  Adams,  and  to  have  witnessed 
the  respect  with  which  he  was  then  regarded. 

Of  the  PRINCE  OF  WALES  I  saw  not  a  little  when  he 
was  in  Boston,  having  been  on  the  committee  for  his 
reception.  Longfellow  and  I  were  of  the  committee  of 
three,  with  Commodore  Hudson,  for  conducting  him  to 
the  ball,  and  he  was  specially  committed  to  my  charge. 
The  pains  he  took  the  next  morning,  in  the  Library  at 
Cambridge,  in  returning  a  little  pencil  which  lie  had 
borrowed  of  me  for  writing  down  his  partners  for  the 
dance,  and  which  I  had  told  him  was  not  worth  return- 
ing, impressed  me  with  an  idea  of  his  thoughtfulness  ; 
and  the  interest  he  manifested  in  the  autographs  of 
Washington  and  Franklin  (of  which  I  gave  him  speci- 
mens, at  his  own  suggestion,  from  my  own  family 
papers)  evinced  both  intelligence  and  tact. 

It  happened  that  Longfellow  and  I  were  standing 
together  on  the  lawn  at  a  garden-party  at  Holland 
House  in  1867,  when  the  Prince,  who  was  among  the 
guests,  came  up  and  greeted  us  cordially.  After  a  little 
talk  about  Boston  and  his  visit  to  the  United  States,  he 
asked  us  to  go  with  him  and  let  him  recall  us  to  the 
Comte  de  Paris.  Nothing  could  have  been  kinder  or 
more  graceful  than  his  manner.  A  few  days  later,  he 
sent  us  a  special  invitation  to  call  on  him  at  Marlbo- 
rough  House,  where  we  spent  half  an  hour  with  him. 
On  taking  leave,  he  excused  himself  for  not  offering  us 
some  more  formal  hospitality  on  account  of  the  Princess's 
recent  confinement,  and  said  to  me  in  parting,  "Re- 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  77 

member  me  to  all  my  Boston  friends."  Soon  after- 
ward I  met  him  at  a  ball  at  Earl  Spencer's,  when  he 
crossed  the  room  to  shake  hands  with  me,  and  presented 
me  to  the  French  Ambassador,  Prince  La  Tour  d'Au- 
vergne.  I  was  most  agreeably  disappointed  in  his  whole 
air  and  aspect,  and  entirely  discredited  the  malicious 
gossip  which  prevailed  about  him  at  that  time. 

Seven  years  later,  in  1874,  at  a  state  concert  in 
Buckingham  Palace,  I  was  gratified  to  find  that  he  still 
remembered  me,  and  he  took  pains  to  present  both  my 
wife  and  myself  to  the  Princess.  At  a  garden-party  at 
Lambeth  Palace  not  long  after,  he  again  honored  me 
with  some  little  conversation ;  and  he  has  left  on  my 
mind  the  impression  of  exceeding  courtesy,  with  that 
royal  gift,  a  good  memory  for  faces. 

I  was  not  less  favorably  impressed  with  Prince 
ARTHUR,  whom  I  met  at  the  funeral  of  George  Peabody 
at  Danvers,  and  who  was  among  the  hearers  of  my 
eulogy  on  that  occasion.  There  was  a  singular  grace 
and  graciousness  about  him,  and  of  course  I  could  not 
but  feel  gratified  and  flattered  by  his  asking  me  to  send 
him  (as  I  did)  two  copies  of  my  eulogy,  —  "  one  for 
himself,  and  the  other,"  as  he  said,  "  for  his  mother." 
Long  afterward,  her  Majesty  did  me  the  great  honor  to 
send  me  a  copy  of  "  Our  Life  in  the  Highlands  "  with 
her  autograph ;  but  I  attributed  this  favor  not  to  any 
merit  of  my  own,  but  to  my  having  become  known  to 
her  as  a  friend  of  Dean  Stanley  and  as  associated  by 
Mr.  Peabody  in  some  of  his  public  benefactions. 


78  A    FRAGMENT 

Crossing  the  Channel  in  June,  1847, 1  spent  hardly 
more  than  a  fortnight  at  that  time  in  Paris,  and  saw 
but  few  persons.  Prescott  had  given  me  a  letter  to 
Corate  ADOLPHE  DE  CIRCOURT,  who  from  that  time 
until  his  death  in  1879  was  one  of  my  most  valued 
friends  and  correspondents.  Speaking  and  writing  the 
English  language  perfectly,  he  always  seemed  to  me  a 
man  of  the  most  universal  knowledge  and  accomplish- 
ment I  have  ever  known.  He  had  reviewed  Prescott's 
"Ferdinand  and  Isabella"  in  the  Bibliotheque  Univer- 
selle  de  Geneve,  six  or  seven  years  before  I  knew  him, 
and  had  greatly  gratified  Prescott  and  his  friends.  He 
was  soon  to  be  intrusted  with  an  important  mission  to 
Berlin,  and  to  win  from  Lamartine  a  tribute  such  as 
hardly  any  other  man  of  his  time  and  country  has  ever 
received.  "  This  person,"  says  Lamartine,  "  little  known 
as  yet  out  of  the  aristocratic  world,  a  man  of  literature 
and  learning,  is  M.  de  Circourt.  He  had  been  employed 
in  diplomacy  under  the  Restoration.  The  revolution  of 
July  had  thrown  him  into  retirement  and  opposition,  — 
being  more  inclined  to  legitimacy  than  to  democracy. 
He  had  profited  by  these  years  of  seclusion  to  devote 
himself  to  studies  which  would  have  absorbed  many 
men's  lives,  but  which  were  only  the  diversions  of  his 
own.  Languages,  races,  geography,  history,  philosophy, 
travels,  constitutions,  religions  of  people  from  the  in- 
fancy of  the  world  down  to  our  own  day,  from  Thibet 
even  to  the  Alps,  —  he  had  incorporated  them  all  into 
his  mind;  had  reflected  upon  them  all,  had  retained 
them  all.  One  might  question  him  on  the  universality 
of  facts  and  ideas  which  make  up  the  world,  without 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  79 

his  being  obliged,  in  order  to  answer,  to  consult  other 
volumes  than  his  own  memory,  —  an  immense  extent 
and  surface  and  depth  of  notions,  of  which  no  one  ever 
knew  the  bottom  or  the  limits ;  a  living  world-chart  of 
human  knowledge.  .  .  .  M.  de  Circourt  had  married  a 
young  Russian  girl,  of  an  aristocratic  family  and  of  a 
European  spirit.  Through  her  he  had  relations  to  all 
that  was  eminent  in  the  literary  or  court  circles  of  Ger- 
many and  of  the  North." 

De  Candolles,  the  great  botanist,  bears  similar  testi- 
mony to  the  marvellous  acquirements  and  accomplish- 
ments of  M.  de  Circourt,  and  gives  more  than  one 
most  striking  anecdote  of  the  young  Russian  girl,  Ana- 
stasia  de  Klustein,  who,  when  I  was  in  Paris,  had  been 
the  Comtesse  de  Circourt  for  many  years.  She  was  in 
some  respects  more  remarkable  even  than  her  husband, 
with  a  vivacity,  a  lei  esprit,  and  a  charm  of  manner  al- 
together her  own.  Her  command  of  languages  seemed 
almost  miraculous.  I  have  been  at  her  salon  of  a  morn- 
ing or  an  evening,  and  heard  her  converse  freely  in 
English,  French,  Italian,  German,  and  I  think  Spanish 
also,  besides  Russian,  her  native  tongue.  She  would 
toss  off  her  questions  or  answers  in  either  language  in- 
differently, according  to  the  guests  who  surrounded  her, 
and  seemed  equally  at  home  in  all.  The  most  distin- 
guished men  and  women  of  all  parties  united  in  admir- 
ing and  paying  homage  to  her.  De  Tocqueville  and 
Lamartine  and  Cavour  and  Mignet,  as  well  as  De  Can- 
dolles, bore  common  testimony  to  her  attractions. 

I  saw  Madame  de  Circourt  again  in"  1859  or  1860, 
having  had  more  than  one  charming  letter  from  her  in 


80  A   FRAGMENT 

the  interval.  A  few  years  previously  she  had  been 
terribly  burned,  and  was  now  an  invalid  and  a  great 
sufferer ;  but  her  physicians  permitted  her  to  receive 
a  few  friends  twice  a  week,  in  the  morning  or  evening. 
Lying  on  a  little  sofa,  with  an  anodyne  at  her  side 
which  she  occasionally  sipped  to  alleviate  anguish,  her 
conversation  was  as  bright  and  sparkling  as  it  had  been 
thirteen  years  before,  and  her  repartees  in  every  tongue 
had  lost  nothing  of  their  point  and  pungency.  A  more 
heroic  endurance  of  suffering  I  have  never  imagined. 
But  a  few  years  more  brought  it  to  an  end ;  and  her 
husband  long  lived  alone  in  his  little  villa  at  La  Celle 
St.  Cloud,  the  neighborhood  of  which  during  the  war 
with  Prussia  became  the  scene  of  conflict,  and  its  sur- 
roundings were  greatly  changed  by  the  cannon  of 
contending  forts  and  armies.  The  desolation  of  his 
home  and  the  disasters  of  his  country  alike  bore 
heavily  upon  him. 

Circourt  was  never  elected  to  the  French  Academy. 
His  writings,  voluminous  as  they  were  in  amount,  have 
never  taken  the  form  of  a  volume.  Essays  and  reviews, 
contributed  to  periodical  journals  and  never  collected, 
occupied  his  life.  Not  a  few  of  them  have  related  to 
America  or  Americans.  Prescott's  "  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,"  Bancroft's  "  History  of  the  United  States," 
Kirke's  "Charles  the  Bold,"  Parkman's  "Jesuits  in 
Canada,"  Motley's  "  Dutch  Republic  "  too,  if  I  mistake 
not,  Ticknor's  "  Life  of  Prescott,"  and  my  own  "  Life 
and  Letters  of  John  Winthrop,"  have  been  the  subject 
of  elaborate  treatment  at  his  hands.  Had  he  devoted 
himself  to  a  single  work,  he  could  not  have  failed  to 


OF   AUTOBIOGKAPHY.  81 

achieve  a  fame  which  these  desultory  labors  have  not 
won,  though,  after  all,  perhaps  these  have  been  more 
useful  to  his  fellow-men. 

Circourt  introduced  me  to  MIGNET,  the  historian, 
Perpetual  Secretary  of  the  Institute  of  Moral  and 
Political  Sciences.  With  him  I  attended  an  Annual 
Seance  of  the  Institute,  and  heard  Mignet  deliver  his 
commemorative  discourse  on  Ancillon,  the  eminent 
Prussian  statesman  and  philosopher.  The  scene  was 
very  striking.  The  little  hall  of  the  Institute  was 
crowded;  and  a  guard  of  soldiers  with  muskets  not 
only  kept  the  doors,  but  were  in  the  very  aisles. 
Some  thirty  of  the  most  noted  literary  men  of  France 
were  in  their  seats  as  members,  the  officers  of  the 
Institute  wearing  green  embroidered  uniforms,  with 
swords  and  chapeaux.  Mignet,  in  uniform  as  Secre- 
tary, took  his  seat  at  the  desk  in  front  of  the  President, 
and  delivered,  or  rather  read,  his  discourse  ex  cathedra. 
His  reading,  however,  with  occasional  gestures,  was 
exquisite.  A  very  handsome  man,  —  "  le  beau  Mignet," 
as  he  was  justly  called,  —  his  voice  was  charming;  and 
Everett  himself  could  not  have  given  more  effect  to 
the  performance.  He  was  then  in  the  freshness  of  his 
manhood.  I  heard  him  again  in  1860,  at  the  same 
place,  on  a  similar  occasion,  and  with  the  same  sur- 
roundings, deliver,  or  read,  his  discourse  on  Count 
Portalis.  Thirteen  years  had  left  little  mark  on  either 
figure  or  voice,  and  I  had  a  renewed  impression  of  the 
exceeding  beauty  and  grace  of  his  manner.  Disliking 
the  Empire  and  the  Emperor,  he  omitted  no  opportu- 


82  A   FRAGMENT 

nity  darkly  to  intimate  his  dislike,  and  to  make  promi- 
nent whatever  in  the  career  of  Portalis  had  been 
hostile  to  the  Imperial  policy.  The  occasion  was  thus 
made  a  little  exciting,  and  there  were  rumors  after- 
ward that  a  caution,  if  nothing  more,  would  be  issued  by 
the  Imperial  Police  against  such  utterances. 

I  saw  Mignet  repeatedly  at  his  own  house  and  at  my 
hotel,  and  was  deeply  impressed  with  the  brilliancy  of 
his  conversation.  In  talking  with  him  about  Dupan- 
loup,  then  Bishop  of  Orleans,  whose  speeches  and 
letters  I  had  read  with  admiration,  he  said,  "  Have 
you  read  his  Eloge  on  General  La  Moriciere  ?  There 
is  nothing  finer  since  Bossuet."  I  had  an  opportunity 
of  reading  it  shortly  afterward,  and  found  it  as  elo- 
quent as  Mignet  had  described. 

I  saw  him  again  in  1867,  when  he  had  been  very  ill, 
and  exhibited  the  marks  of  increasing  infirmities.  Pie 
was  obliged  to  give  up  his  Annual  Discourse,  or  I 
should  have  heard  him  a  third  time.  He  sent  me 
copies  of  his  Eloges  on  De  Tocqueville  and  Macaulay, 
and  gave  me  his  two  volumes  of  Discourses,  including 
an  elaborate  and  admirable  "  Notice  of  Franklin." 

I  saw  a  good  deal  of  him  again  in  1874  and  1875, 
dining  with  him  and  Barthelemy  St.  Hilaire  in  the 
latter  year  at  Thiers's  table ;  and  on  my  last  visit  to 
Paris,  in  1882, 1  found  him  genial  and  cordial  as  ever, 
engaged  in  historical  composition  at  the  great  age  of 
eighty-six. 

Besides  the  two  stances  of  the  Institute  which  I  have 
mentioned,  I  was  fortunate  in  being  present  at  two 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  83 

others,  —  one  in  1874,  when  De  Lomenie's  description 
of  Mirabeau  was  very  dramatic ;  the  other  in  1882, 
when,  by  the  kindness  of  Barthelemy  St.  Hilaire,  I 
assisted  at  the  memorable  reception  of  Cherbuliez  by 
Ernest  Renan  and  heard  eloquent  addresses  from 
both. 

I  heard  GUIZOT  make  an  eloquent  speech  from  the 
Tribune  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  in  1847,  but  did 
not  make  his  acquaintance  until  many  years  later, 
when  we  met  repeatedly.  Calling  upon  him  at  the 
close  of  1859,  he  said, — 

"  Have  you  anything  new  this  morning  ?  " 

"Nothing,"  I  replied,  "but  the  sudden  death  of 
Macaulay,  as  announced  by  telegraph  from  London." 

"  Macaulay  dead  !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  He  was  my 
best  friend  in  England ; "  and  he  could  hardly  conceal 
or  contain  his  emotion. 

Guizot  spoke  English  perfectly,  but  THIERS  not  a 
word.  If  he  could  speak  a  word,  he  never  would.  I 
had  taken  a  letter  and  parcel  for  him  from  London  to 
Paris  from  William  Bingham  Baring,  afterward  second 
Lord  Ashburton,  who  made  me  promise  to  leave  my 
own  card  with  them.  The  card  of  Thiers  was  imme- 
diately returned ;  and  soon  afterward  Mr.  Martin,  then 
our  Charge  d' Affaires,  accompanied  me  to  a  reception 
at  his  house  in  Place  St.  George,  subsequently  destroyed 
by  the  Communists.  Thiers  was  very  cordial;  but 
finding  that  my  French  would  hardly  hold  out  for 
a  political  discussion,  he  passed  me  on  politely  to 
his  wife,  who  spoke  English  fluently.  I  was  again  at 


84  A   FRAGMENT 

his  house  in  1867,  and  while  waiting  for  him  to 
come  in,  I  had  a  good  chance  to  observe  the  beauty 
of  his  pictures  and  objects  of  art,  so  many  of  which 
the  Communists  have  destroyed  or  ruined.  I  heard 
him  in  the  Chamber,  too,  more  than  once,  in  reply  to 
Rouher,  and  during  some  of  the  most  exciting  debates 
on  the  Roman  question  and  other  agitating  subjects. 
I  shall  never  forget  his  exclamation,  twice  repeated 
with  the  most  passionate  emphasis :  "  Soyons  Francois ! 
Soyons  Frangais ! "  The  pitch  of  enthusiasm  to  which 
the  Chamber  rose  at  that  moment  exceeded  anything 
I  had  ever  witnessed  in  a  so-called  deliberative  body. 
But  the  Chamber  was  always  in  a  state  of  excitement, 
and  often  of  confusion,  during  the  debates  in  those  last 
years  of  the  Empire;  and  a  stranger  would  have 
thought  that  they  might  pass  from  words  to  blows  at 
any  moment.  Yet  Rouher  maintained  a  comparative 
tranquillity  and  dignity  of  manner,  and  had  a  certain 
pose,  when  he  ascended  the  tribune,  which  recalled 
Webster's  manner  to  me.  Thiers  more  than  once 
reminded  me  of  John  Quincy  Adams  in  some  of  his 
most  violent  moods  during  the  antislavery  debates 
in  Congress.  I  was  greatly  impressed  by  the  fire  of 
French  eloquence  at  that  time.  When  Thiers  sent 
me  a  copy  of  his  most  elaborate  speech,  I  little 
imagined  how  soon  he  would  be  ruling  the  destinies 
of  a  French  republic ;  but  quite  as  little  had  I  imag- 
ined, in  1847,  how  soon  Louis  Philippe  would  be 
dethroned,  and  be  succeeded,  after  a  brief  republican 
interregnum,  by  an  Emperor. 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  85 

I  was  presented  to  Louis  PHILIPPE  by  Mr.  Martin, 
our  Charge  d'Affaires  (after  Mr.  King  of  Alabama  had 
left  Paris,  and  before  Mr.  Rush  had  arrived),  at  the 
Palace  of  Neuilly.  It  was  a  quiet  evening  reception, 
and  I  was  invited,  out  of  regular  course,  as  a  mem- 
ber of  Congress.  The  British  Ambassador  (Lord 
Normanby)  and  Leverrier,  then  in  the  first  flush  of 
his  celebrity  as  the  discoverer  of  the  new  planet, 
were  almost  the  only  visitors  besides  myself  and  Mr. 
Martin.  There  were  two  or  three  aides-de-camp  in 
uniform ;  but  the  King  was  in  plain  clothes,  and  the 
Queen  and  Madame  Adelaide  and  the  Duchess  of 
Orleans  were  sitting  at  a  little  table,  sipping  their 
tea  and  then  turning  to  their  embroidery.  Nothing 
could  have  been  more  simple  and  unaffected  than  the 
manners  of  them  all.  The  Duchess  of  Orleans,  with 
whom  I  conversed  most,  was  particularly  graceful  and 
gracious,  and  gave  me  an  impression  of  goodness 
and  loveliness  which  was  fully  confirmed  by  her  Life 
and  Letters,  as  published  after  her  death.  Her  son, 
the  Comte  de  Paris,  was  a  little  boy  then,  and  had 
doubtless  gone  to  bed ;  but  I  have  known  him  since 
in  London  and  in  Boston,  and  he  has  been  good 
enough  to  send  me  his  volume  on  the  Trades-Unions 
of  England,  and  his  valuable  History  of  our  Civil  War. 
He  has  always  impressed  me  as  the  worthy  son  of  so 
excellent  a  mother.  Louis  Philippe  himself  was 
cordial  and  chatty,  asking  after  Americans  whom  he 
had  known  when  in  the  United  States  as  an  exile. 
"  Did  you  know  Tim  Pickering  ? "  said  he,  and  then 
went  on  to  say  more  than  I  can  remember  of  him  and 


86  A   FRAGMENT 

others  of  our  old-time  statesmen.  He  followed  me 
almost  to  the  door  of  the  room,  in  the  easiest  way, 
when  I  took  my  leave,  and  told  me  emphatically  that 
I  must  come  and  see  him  again.  Mr.  Martin  said 
this  was  a  royal  command,  and  must  be  obeyed; 
and  so  the  next  week  I  went  again,  —  this  time  in 
plain  clothes,  for  I  was  in  uniform  before.  Another 
conversation  with  the  Duchess  of  Orleans  renewed 
my  impression  of  the  sweetness  and  sincerity  of  her 
manner  and  character;  and  the  King  was  as  jaunty 
and  as  cordial  as  before.  In  seven  or  eight  months 
more,  he  and  his  family  were  banished  from  France, 
and  the  palace  in  which  I  had  seen  them  was  sacked 
and  burned. 

My  pleasant  associations  with  the  royal  family  of 
Orleans  were  revived  and  intensified  thirty-five  years 
later,  in  September,  1882,  by  being  privileged,  through 
the  kind  offices  of  M.  Laugel,  to  lunch  with  that  dis- 
tinguished soldier  and  historical  writer,  the  Due 
d'Aumale,  at  his  well-known  Chateau  of  Chantilly, 
where  he  was  good  enough  to  show  me  in  person  many 
of  the  priceless  works  of  art  which  it  contains. 

Of  LAMARTINE,  whose  three  months  of  power  suc- 
ceeded the  downfall  of  the  Orleans  dynasty,  and  whose 
eloquence  arrested  the  madness  of  the  Eed  Republi- 
cans of  that  period,  I  saw  nothing  in  1847.  But  having 
alluded  to  him,  in  July,  1848,  in  my  oration  on  laying 
the  corner-stone  of  the  monument  to  Washington,  as 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United 
States,  I  received  from  him  a  letter  of  acknowledg- 


OF   AUTOBIOGKAPHY.  87 

merit  which  was  very  characteristic,  and  is  worthy  of 
a  place  here  :  — 

PAKIS,  9  Sept.  1848. 

MONSIEUR,  —  Les  cordes  magiques  m'ont  apporte  le  mag- 
nifique  fragment  de  votre  discours,  oil  mon  nom  bien  indigne 
d'un  pareil  honneur  est  associe  par  vous  a  la  m^moire  de 
Washington.  Cette  allusion  m'a  ete  d'autant  plus  douce  en 
ce  moment,  que  je  me  trouve  dans  ma  patrie  sous  la  poids 
d'une  immense  depression,  consequent  d'une  immense  erreur 
sur  les  motifs  de  ma  conduite  politique,  apres  que  j'ai  etc* 
assez  heureux  pour  contribuer  a  remettre  cette  patrie  sauve'e 
dans  les  mains  de  TAssemble'e  Nationale.  J'ai  trop  lu  et 
trop  ecrit  1'histoire  pour  m'etonner  d'un  mal  entendu 
d'opinion,  ni  meme  pour  m'affliger  d'une  persecution  morale. 
Je  sais  combien  1'humanite  est  susceptible  d'erreur,  et 
quelquefois  meme  avide  d'ingratitude.  Neanmoins  je  vous 
remercie  d'avoir  envoye*  avec  votre  discours  ici  un  certain 
remords  a  quelques-uns  de  mes  compatriotes.  La  justice 
qui  vient  de  loin  est  celle  qui  arrive  la  premiere,  parce  que 
elle  est  ordiriairement  la  plus  impartiale.  II  y  a  cependant 
une  bien  grande  partialite*  dans  vos  paroles  sur  moi;  mais 
c'est  la  partialite  de  la  bienveillance  qui  unit  entre  eux  a 
travers  1'ocean  les  republicans  du  meme  coeur.  C'est  de 
cette  partialite,  Monsieur,  que  je  devois  me  plaindre,  car  elle 
m'ecrase  en  me  louant.  Je  n'en  ai  pas  la  force.  Je  saisis  au 
contraire  avec  empressement  ce  pretexte  pour  vous  addresser 
non  seulement  ma  reconnaissance,  mais  mon  admiration 
desinteressee  pour  votre  discours,  qui  sera  aussi  un  monu- 
ment a  FAmerique,  a  la  vraie  liberte,  et  a  Washington. 

Recevez,  Monsieur,  mes  respectueux  et  affectueux  compli- 
ments, 

LAMARTINE, 

Representant  du  Peuple. 
A  1'honorable  EGBERT  WINTHROP, 

President  de  la  Chambre  de  Representants. 


88  A   FRAGMENT 

On  one  of  ray  next  visits  to  Paris,  in  1859  or  1860,  I 
eagerly  complied  with  the  invitation  of  Lamartine, 
through  a  friend,  and  passed  an  evening  at  his  house. 
There  was  something  more  than  usually  interesting  in 
his  appearance,  and  his  voice  was  exceedingly  rich. 
As  he  walked  the  room,  conversing,  or  rather  solilo- 
quizing, in  the  most  emphatic  and  almost  impassioned 
manner,  his  vibratory  tones  combined  with  his  tall 
figure,  and  a  somewhat  dictatorial  manner,  to  remind 
me  of  some  scenes  between  Mr.  Clay  and  myself  at 
Washington.  Unfortunately,  he  either  could  not  or 
would  not  speak  a  word  of  English,  albeit  his  wife 
was  an  Englishwoman.  His  remarks  in  regard  to  the 
United  States,  and  particularly  on  the  subject  of 
slavery,  were  by  no  means  agreeable  to  me,  and  I  was 
roused  to  muster  up  all  my  resources  in  reply.  I  think 
I  can  safely  say  that  I  talked  more  bad  French  that 
night  to  the  poet-statesman  of  France  than  I  had  ever 
done  before,  or  than  I  have  ever  done  since,  to  any 
one.  The  failure  of  his  subscription-list  in  America 
had  greatly  disappointed  him ;  and  his  own  downfall, 
after  so  brief  a  term  of  authority,  had  served  to  sour 
him  generally.  Yet  I  have  found  much  to  admire  in 
Lamartine's  genius  and  heroism,  and  I  was  charmed 
with  some  parts  of  his  conversation  that  evening.  We 
parted  most  amicably,  and  he  soon  afterward  called 
upon  me  at  my  hotel ;  but  I  was  out,  and  saw  him  no 
more. 

I  have  already  mentioned  having  met  NAPOLEON 
III.  in  London  in  1847.  I  breakfasted  with  him  at 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  .  89 

Monckton  Milnes's,  lunched  with  him  at  Miss  Burdett- 
Coutts's,  dined  with  him  at  Joshua  Bates's,  and  we 
exchanged  cards.  There  was  an  air  of  modest  reti- 
cency  about  him  then,  which  was  quite  attractive. 
At  Miss  Burdett-Coutts's  he  was  accompanied  by  Doctor 
Conneau,  and  by  the  dog  which  had  been  a  party  to 
his  escape  from  the  prison  at  Ham.  On  my  return  to 
London  in  1859,  at  a  matinee  at  Miss  Burdett-Coutts's, 
the  first  person  I  was  presented  to  at  the  head  of  the 
stairs,  on  entering,  was  the  Comte  de  Paris,  then  an 
exile ;  while,  on  crossing  the  Channel  again,  I  found 
Louis  Napoleon,  the  exile  of  1847,  on  the  throne ! 
No  Court  receptions  were  then  being  held,  but  at  the 
suggestion  of  a  former  French  Minister  to  the  United 
States,  who  had  known  me  as  Speaker  and  Senator, 
I  wrote  a  note  to  Mocquard,  the  private  secretary  of 
the  Emperor,  expressing  a  disposition  to  wait  upon  his 
Majesty.  Meantime,  however,  our  Secretary  of  Lega- 
tion, Mr.  Calhoun  (then  acting  as  Charge  d' Affaires), 
had  sent  in  rny  name ;  but  delays,  resulting  from  the 
state  of  public  affairs,  prevented  any  appointment  for 
an  audience  reaching  me  until  I  had  gone  a  day's 
journey  on  my  way  to  Italy. 

In  1868, 1  was  more  fortunate,  and  through  the  kind- 
ness of  General  Dix  —  at  that  time  our  Minister  to 
France  —  had  the  pleasure  of  accompanying  him  to 
one  of  the  petits  kmdis  of  the  Empress.  Beautiful  she 
certainly  was  that  evening,  and  singularly  graceful 
and  winning.  In  alluding  to  my  country  and  country- 
men, she  gave  me  a  chance  to  name  Washington 

*  o  O 

Irving,  who  had  often  told  me  of  his  intimacy  in  her 


90  A   FRAGMENT 

family,  and  that  he  had  had  the  Empress  as  a  child  on 
his  knee.  I  did  not,  of  course,  go  into  such  particu- 
lars;  but  she  instantly  caught  at  his  name,  saying, 
"  And  did  you  know  Washington  Irving  ?  And  was 
he  a  friend  of  yours  ?  He  was  a  delightful  person  and 
a  delightful  writer  ! "  On  the  Emperor  saying  to  me 
rather  significantly,  "  You  have  been  in  Europe  before, 
M.  Winthrop,"  I  said  that  I  could  not  forget  having 
met  his  Majesty  at  Mr.  Bates's  in  London,  twenty 
years  before.  "  Oh,  yes !  and  what  a  good  man  Mr. 
Bates  was  !  "  said  he.  "  And  what  a  good  American  !  " 
he  immediately  added.  Thus  I  had  elicited  imperial 
compliments  for  two  of  my  countrymen,  and  was 
content. 

The  scene  was  a  magnificent  one,  without  the  pomp 
and  ceremony  of  a  grand  reception,  but  also  without 
its  crowd  and  confusion.  After  the  first  formal  entree, 
the  Emperor  and  Empress  moved  freely  about  among 
their  guests,  and  every  one  was  put  at  his  ease.  The 
music,  the  toilettes,  the  flowers,  the  supper,  were  all 
exquisite ;  but  I  had  witnessed  a  still  more  magnifi- 
cent pageant  of  the  Empire  a  few  months  before,  when 
I  was  present  at  the  opening  of  the  Chambers  at  the 
beginning  of  the  New  Year.  That  was  a  state  cere- 
mony, like  the  one  I  had  witnessed  in  London  in  1847, 
and  I  hardly  know  which  was  the  more  imposing,  — 
the  opening  of  the  French  Chambers  by  the  Emperor, 
or  the  prorogation  of  Parliament  by  the  Queen.  The 
Emperor  at  sixty  could  hardly  be  expected  to  deliver 
his  speech  as  gracefully  as  the  Queen  at  twenty-five, 
but  he  pronounced  it  distinctly  and  bore  himself  with 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  91 

great  propriety  and  dignity.  All  the  high  officers  of 
the  court  and  the  army  were  present,  with  the  Empress 
and  her  ladies  of  honor,  and  the  Prince  Imperial  and 
all  the  imperial  family,  making  a  superb  spectacle. 
How  little  did  those  who  witnessed  it,  or  those  who 
participated  in  it,  dream  of  the  reverses  which  France 
and  its  imperial  rulers  were  so  soon  to  undergo !  I 
have  always  thought  it  noble  of  Napoleon  III.  to  avow 
his  personal  responsibility  for  the  surrender  at  Sedan, 
nor  can  I  doubt  that  the  reasons  he  assigned  for  order- 
ing the  surrender  were  sufficient;  but  the  war  with 
Prussia  was  a  terrible  mistake,  if  it  could  have  been 
avoided.  Yet  if  there  had  been  no  Sedan,  the  war 
might  have  been  esteemed  wise,  or  certainly  would 
have  been  called  so. 

Of  his  successors  at  the  helm  of  France  (besides  Thiers, 
whom  I  have  already  mentioned)  I  have  been  received 
at  the  Elysee  by  both  Presidents  MACMAHON  and  GREVY, 
while  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  GAMBETTA  after 
his  fall  from  power.  Marshal  Macmahon  impressed  me 
as  a  courteous,  high-minded  soldier ;  Grevy  as  rather  a 
homespun  person  with  but  little  conversation  ;  Gam- 
betta  I  found  much  more  of  a  gentleman  than  I 
expected,  with  a  wonderful  voice,  a  striking  carriage, 
and  an  air  of  conscious  strength. 

But  for  the  risk  of  becoming  tedious,  I  might  easily 
mention  other  Parisian  celebrities,  of  less  historical 
importance,  with  whom  at  different  periods  I  have  been 
brought  into  contact,  and  some  of  whom  I  met  at  the 
well-known  receptions  of  Madame  MOHL.  I  content 


92  A   FRAGMENT 

myself,  however,  with  briefly  alluding  to  several  oppor- 
tunities I  enjoyed  of  appreciating  the  charm  of  French 
rural  life.  I  had  long  been  no  stranger  to  English 
country-houses ;  but  it  was  not  until  1882  that  I  had 
an  opportunity  of  comparing  them  with  French  ones, 
having  in  that  year  passed  a  few  pleasant  days  with 
the  Marquis  de  KOCHAMBEAU  at  his  ancestral  chateau 
near  Vendome,  where  I  occupied  the  tapestried  bed- 
room of  the  Marechal  de  Rochambeau  of  Revolutionary 
memory,  which  contained  a  portrait  of  Washington, 
given  by  himself.  My  agreeable  acquaintance  with 
the  present  Marquis,  dated  from  the  previous  year, 
when  he  had  come  to  America  as  an  invited  guest  at 
the  ceremonies  attending  the  centennial  anniversary 
of  the  surrender  at  Yorktown,  on  which  occasion  I  had 
delivered  a  commemorative  address  by  appointment 
of  Congress.  The  official  deputation  from  France,  by 
the  way,  included  General  BOULANGER,  whose  con- 
versation did  not  then  suggest  to  me  or  others  that  he 
was  a  man  of  much  capacity,  but  whose  subsequent 
meteoric  career  and  tragic  end  are  too  familiar  to 
require  comment. 

A  few  weeks  later,  I  had  another  pleasant  visit, 
this  time  in  Normandy,  at  the  country-seat  of  the 
retired  ambassador  DE  CORCELLE,  a  man  full  of  inter- 
esting reminiscence,  his  wife  the  granddaughter  of 
Lafayette,  a  fine  portrait  of  whom,  by  Ary  SchefFer, 
was  one  of  the  principal  ornaments  of  the  house.  The 
neighboring  country  was  beautiful ;  and  among  the 
places  I  was  taken  to  was  Bois  Roussel,  the  seat  01 
De  Corcelle's  nephew,  Count  Roeclerer,  a  great  French 


OP   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  93 

agriculturist  and  breeder  of  race-horses.  Another  orig- 
inal portrait  of  Lafayette,  together  with  much  of  his 
library,  I  saw  while  lunching  at  his  former  country- 
house,  the  Chateau  de  la  Grange,  then  occupied  by 
the  venerable  Count  de  LASTEYRIE,  who  with  other 
members  of  his  family  received  me  very  kindly.  Ma- 
dame de  Lasteyrie  seemed  to  me  quite  the  most 
attractive  old  French  lady  I  had  met. 

Of  Continental  celebrities,  other  than  French  ones,  I 
have  known  comparatively  few.  It  so  happens  that  my 
visits  to  Berlin  have  been  to  enable  some  member  of  my 
family  to  consult  an  oculist,  at  times  when  the  Court 
was  absent,  and  I  have  thus  never  met  Bismarck.  I 
had  a  letter  to  Humboldt,  but  he  died  before  I  could 
deliver  it;  though  I  had  previously  received  a  kind 
note  from  him.  Some  one  had  sent  him  a  copy  of  my 
lecture  on  "Archimedes  and  Franklin,"  on  which  he 
had  made  some  comments  in  a  letter  to  Varnhagen 
von  Ense,  which  has  since  been  published.  I  thus 
had  to  content  myself  with  visiting  his  apartment,  from 
which  I  brought  back  to  Louis  Agassiz  one  of  the 
palms  borne  by  students  at  his  funeral.  On  the  bed 
on  which  he  died,  were  some  reproductions  of  Hilde- 
brand's  well-known  water-color  of  Humboldt  in  his 
library,  one  of  which  I  had  framed  as  a  souvenir. 

In  Vienna,  I  have  been  more  fortunate,  though  when 
I  first  went  there,  in  1859,  the  great  men  of  the  empire 
were  mostly  dead,  Metternich,  for  instance,  having  died 
in  the  preceding  June.  I  have,  however,  known  at 


94  A   FRAGMENT 

different  times  three  Austrian  Prime  Ministers,  von 
RECHBERG,  von  BEUST,  and  von  BUOL-SCHAUENSTEIN, 
the  last-named  a  very  attractive  and  interesting  person. 
At  a  banquet  in  Vienna  in  honor  of  the  hundredth 
anniversary  of  Schiller's  birthday,  I  met  Count  THUN 
and  other  high  officials,  to  say  nothing  of  some  poets 
and  savants  whose  names  I  should  now  have  some  diffi- 
culty in  recalling ;  and  at  Dr.  JAGER'S  I  met  Prince 
SCHWARZENBERG,  though  the  doctor  himself,  who  had 
been  the  physician  and  friend  of  Metternich,  was  the 
more  entertaining  person  of  the  two.  Nor  should  I 
forget  that  I  was  invited  by  the  aged  Prince  ESTERHAZY 
to  his  splendid  palace,  when  he  talked  much  of  Wash- 
ington Irving  and  of  Edward  Everett,  both  of  whom  he 
had  known  when  Ambassador  in  London. 

My  old  friend,  Senator  Seward,  was  with  me  during 
part  of  my  visit  to  Vienna  in  the  autumn  of  1859,  and 
our  Minister,  Mr.  Glancy  Jones,  obtained  for  us  a  pri- 
vate audience  of  the  Emperor,  a  rare  favor  at  that  time. 
It  was  stipulated  that  the  conversation  should  be  in 
German  or  French,  and  of  course  we  chose  French  as 
the  least  unfamiliar  tongue  of  the  two.  Seward,  how- 
ever, with  commendable  precaution,  resolved  to  study 
his  phrases  in  advance,  and  prepared  for  the  occasion  a 
little  opening  speech,  concerning  the  accuracy  of  which 
he  consulted  my  daughter  the  evening  before ;  and  she, 
fresh  from  her  Ollendorff,  revised  it  for  him,  greatly  to 
our  amusement. 

At  noon  the  next  day,  in  evening  dress,  we  drove 
together  to  the  palace  in  Mr.  Jones's  carriage,  though 
neither  he  nor  his  secretary  was  permitted  to  accompany 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  95 

us.  We  were  ushered  to  a  large  ante-chamber  in  which 
some  of  the  Hungarian  Guard  were  on  duty,  one  of 
them  standing  at  the  door  of  the  next  room  with  a 
drawn  sword.  Presently  an  aide-de-camp  came  from 
it,  and  took  back  our  names.  In  a  few  moments  he  re- 
appeared and  conducted  us  to  the  imperial  presence. 
FRANCIS  JOSEPH  was  in  a  room  of  moderate  size,  in  the 
corner  of  which  was  a  working-desk  with  a  single  chair, 
from  which  he  rose  to  receive  us.  It  was  evident  that 
no  one  was  to  sit  there  in  his  presence,  as  there  were 
no  other  chairs.  The  aide-de-camp  disappeared ;  and 
Seward  launched  out  at  once  into  his  little  speech,  but 
bungled  and  broke  down  in  the  middle  of  it.  By  way 
of  rallying  his  resources,  it  occurred  to  him  to  offer  con- 
gratulation on  the  recent  ratification  of  the  treaty  of 
peace  with  France,  and  I  thought  the  Emperor  seemed 
to  wince  at  such  a  reminder  of  his  reverses  in  Lombardy. 
I  came  to  the  rescue  with  a  word  or  two  about  Maria 
Theresa  and  some  other  of  the  historic  glories  of  Aus- 
tria. The  Emperor  then  asked  a  few  simple  questions 
about  our  country  and  ourselves,  and  soon  signified  by 
a  bow  that  our  audience  was  at  an  end.  He  was  in  un- 
dress uniform,  perfectly  natural  and  unaffected,  and  I 
was  agreeably  disappointed  by  his  apparent  intelligence 
and  energy. 

I  saw  him  again,  reviewing  a  noble  body  of  cavalry, 
.and  surrounded  by  a  brilliant  staff  in  every  variety  of 
superb  costume.  I  saw  him  still  again  at  a  concert 
given  in  honor  of  the  Schiller  Anniversary,  in  one  of 
the  halls  of  the  palace.  It  was  a  magnificent  entertain- 
ment, —  the  Ninth  Symphony  of  Beethoven,  with  Schil- 


96  A   FRAGMENT 

ler's  Song  of  Joy,  performed  by  a  select  orchestra  of  one 
hundred,  with  the  aid  of  the  soloists  and  chorus  of  the 
Imperial  Opera  troupe.  The  symphony  was  preceded 
by  the  recitation  of  some  of  Schiller's  most  celebrated 
odes  by  the  great  actors  of  Germany.  I  had  Lord 
Lytton's  admirable  version  of  the  odes  in  my  hand,  and 
was  thus  enabled  to  appreciate  them  the  better.  The 
Empress  sat  with  her  husband  in  a  low  gallery  at  our 
side,  and  fulfilled  all  our  expectations  by  her  exceeding 
grace  and  beauty. 

I  have  never  visited  Russia,  but  I  have  seen  a  good 
deal  of  Russian  diplomates  in  different  parts  of  the 
world,  and  I  was  intimate  with  ALEXANDER  DE  BODISCO, 
who  was  for  nearly  twenty  years  Minister  at  Wash- 
ington, and  did  so  much  to  create  a  friendly  feeling 
between  the  two  countries.  He  delighted  in  bringing 
together  at  his  sumptuous  table  leading  men  of  all 
parties  and  sections,  and  did  what  he  could  (aided  by 
his  handsome  American  wife)  to  soften  the  asperities 
and  animosities  of  political  controversy. 

Bodisco  was  a  character  in  his  way,  with  a  great 
love  of  dress,  and  when  he  gave  a  grand  ball  some- 
times wore  in  succession  two  showy  uniforms  in  the 
course  of  the  same  evening.  Washington  was  then 
a  comparatively  small  place,  but  questions  connected 
with  official  precedence  were  as  troublesome  as  they 
often  have  been  since.  Ex-President  John  Quincy 
Adams,  Senator  Benton,  and  others  of  the  old  school, 
were  wont  strenuously  to  contend  that  the  Speaker 
of  the  House,  as  third  officer  of  the  nation,  should 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  97 

outrank  both  the  Chief- Justice  and  the  Secretary  of 
State.  Accordingly,  Bodisco,  at  an  entertainment  given 
by  him  in  honor  of  the  marriage  of  a  favorite  niece, 
assigned  to  me  (as  Speaker)  the  duty  of  leading  the 
way  to  supper.  This  proceeding  manifestly  annoyed 
James  Buchanan,  then  Secretary  of  State  and  after- 
ward President,  who  was  also  one  of  the  guests,  and 
whom  Bodisco  vainly  attempted  to  appease  by  handing 
him  a  knife  and  requesting  him  to  take  the  initiative 
in  cutting  the  bride-cake ! 

Some  three  and  twenty  years  later  I  had  the  honor 
of  presiding  at  a  banquet  given  to  a  younger  brother 
of  the  present  Czar,  the  Grand  Duke  ALEXIS,  who 
impressed  me  as  a  man  of  intelligence  and  accomplish- 
ment, with  a  singularly  genial  and  attractive  address. 
I  met  him  afterward  in  London,  and  was  reminded 
that,  nearly  thirty  years  before,  I  had  been  a  privileged 
spectator  of  a  review  of  the  Household  troops  by  his 
uncle,  the  Grand  Duke  Constantine,  who  was  accom- 
panied on  horseback  by  Prince  Albert,  the  great  Duke 
of  Wellington,  and  a  numerous  staff,  while  the  royal 
children  were  to  be  seen  watching  the  parade  from 
a  window  in  the  Horse  Guards. 

I  was  first  presented  to  Pius  IX.  in  1860.  The  late 
Bishop  Fitzpatrick,  of  Boston,  had  given  me  a  friendly 
and  flattering  letter  to  Cardinal  Antonelli,  and  I  was 
granted  a  private  audience.  The  American  Minister, 
Mr.  Stockton,  accompanied  me ;  and  we  were  ushered 
into  the  Pope's  private  room,  where  he  was  sitting 
in  his  white  flannel  or  merino  robe,  with  a  beautiful 


98  A   FRAGMENT 

crucifix  and  a  jewelled  snuff-box  on  the  table  at  his 
side. 

Immediately  on  our  entrance,  his  Holiness  said 
to  me  in  French,  "  Vous  avez  etc*  President  de  la 
Chambre  et  Senateur?"  and  on  my  replying  affir- 
matively, he  continued,  "  Asseyez-vous,  Monsieur,"  and 
then  launched  out  into  a  most  excited  discourse  on  the 
then  threatened  removal  of  the  French  troops  from 
Rome.  He  spoke  altogether  in  French,  and  talked 
freely  and  fluently  on  public  affairs  on  both  sides  of 
the  ocean.  In  the  course  of  his  remarks  upon  America 
as  "  a  great  country,  of  great  destinies,  and  enjoying 
a  great  liberty,"  I  reminded  him  that  he  was  the  first 
and  only  Pontiff  who  had  ever  crossed  the  ocean. 
He  said  it  was  true  that  as  a  young  priest  he  had 
been  in  Chili,  and  no  other  Pope  had  gone  so  far ;  but 
he  did  not  know  what  might  happen  hereafter.  "  We 
are  in  the  midst  of  great  events,  great  changes.  I  rest 
tranquil,"  said  he,  "amid  them  all,  trusting  in  God. 
I  have  no  ambition  of  earthly  sovereignty,  and  am 
content  to  part  with  temporal  power  whenever  God 
so  wills  it.  But  I  do  not  wish,  nor  is  it  my  duty,  to 
accept  the  decrees  of  mortal  kings  or  emperors  as 
indications  or  instruments  of  God's  will." 

He  more  than  intimated  his  belief  that  the  Emperor 
of  the  French  had  already,  at  that  very  moment,  given 
orders  to  Marshal  Vaillant  to  withdraw  his  troops  from 
Italy.  Mr.  Stockton  suggested  that  it  was  probably- 
only  from  the  north  of  Italy.  The  Pope  replied  that 
he  supposed  the  troops  might  not  be  removed  quite  so 
summarily  from  Rome ;  the  Emperor  ought  certainly 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  99 

to  give  more  than  two  hours'  notice,  —  a  week  or  two 
was  the  least  that  should  be  given.  But  he  was  not 
altogether  at  the  mercy  of  foreign  troops,  and  he 
trusted  all  would  be  safe  whether  they  went  or  stayed. 
And  then  he  made  an  eloquent  and  impassioned  allu- 
sion to  the  exquisite  fresco  of  Heliodorus  by  Raphael, 
and  to  the  intervention  of  a  Divine  Protector  portrayed 
in  that  grand  picture.  Nothing  could  have  been  more 
impressive  than  this  part  of  his  conversation,  and  I 
regret  that  I  cannot  recall  more  of  it.  He  spoke  with 
great  approbation  of  a  recent  speech  or  letter  of  the 
late  Archbishop  Hughes,  and  of  some  manifestation 
which  he  himself  had  just  received  from  Buffalo.  But 
he  seemed  not  to  know  exactly  where  Buffalo  was, 
until  I  referred  to  it  as  being  not  far  from  the  great 
Falls  of  Niagara.  He  spoke  most  gratefully  of  the 
sympathy  which  had  been  manifested  for  Rome,  not 
merely  by  Catholics,  but  by  Protestants  throughout 
the  world,  alluding  particularly  —  if  I  mistake  not  — 
to  some  recent  act  of  the  Grand  Duchess  of  Mecklen- 
burg, among  others. 

Rome  was  at  that  time  in  a  state  of  great  agitation. 
There  were  daily  rumors  that  the  French  garrison  was 
to  be  at  once  removed.  It  was  thought  that  the  Pope 
might  be  obliged  to  fly,  and  now  and  then  it  was 
even  foolishly  suggested  that  he  might  go  to  America. 
Garibaldi  was  at  work  in  the  south  of  Italy.  France, 
having  concluded  her  war  with  Austria,  was  taking 
possession  of  Savoy.  Sardinia  was  annexing  Tuscany. 
The  Roman  police  were  repeatedly  in  collision  with  the 
people ;  and  I  was  witness  to  at  least  one  encounter 


100  A    FRAGMENT 

when  more  than  a  hundred  persons  were  wounded. 
The  excommunication  of  Victor  Emmanuel  was  de- 
cided on ;  and  a  few  weeks  later  I  saw  it  placarded 
on  the  doors  of  St.  Peter's. 

In  1868,  I  had  another  private  interview  with  Pius 
IX.  in  company  with  the  late  George  Peabody,  for 
whom  it  was  arranged  by  Mr.  Hooker.  Age  had 
made  its  mark  on  him  in  the  interval ;  and  the  con- 
versation turned  principally  on  works  of  charity  and 
philanthropy,  for  which  Mr.  Peabody  had  become  so 
celebrated.  He  bade  us  both  sit  down,  and  exhibited 
great  interest  in  asking  about  Mr.  Peabody's  age,  and 
in  learning  the  extent  of  his  benefactions,  readily 
assenting  to  the  suggestion  that  he  should  add  his 
autograph  to  several  fine  imperial  photographs  of  him- 
self, and  writing  a  sentence  of  the  Bible  upon  three  of 
them  for  Mr.  Peabody,  of  which  one  was  for  me,  and 
is  now  in  my  possession. 

At  both  the  periods  above  mentioned,  I  was  again 
formally  presented  to  his  Holiness  with  the  ladies  of  my 
party  on  Palm  Sunday,  and  was  uniformly  impressed 
with  the  grace,  dignity,  and  eminent  benignity  of  his 
appearance  and  manner.  I  saw  him  also  at  a  distance, 
in  great  ceremonials  at  St.  Peter's,  when  the  pomp  and 
paraphernalia  seemed  as  oppressive  to  him  as  they  were 
to  all  beholders.  If  he  was  artful,  as  was  sometimes 
said  by  his  enemies,  he  had  certainly  acquired  the  "  ars 
celare  artem."  He  looked  simple,  humble,  devout. 

Not  so  ANTONELLI,  with  whom  I  was  closeted  twice 
in  the  little  room  next  to  the  reception-room,  in  which 
"  Chastity  triumphing  over  temptation  "  is  the  subject 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  101 

of  a  large  and  very  suggestive  German  picture.  He 
was  a  person  of  great  fascination  for  man  or  woman, 
with  an  eye  of  fire,  and  an  affability  of  the  most 
seducing  sort.  One  needed  not  to  be  with  him  an 
hour  to  understand  that  everything  at  Rome,  reli- 
gious and  secular,  hinged  on  him,  though  he  was  adroit 
enough  to  make  the  Pope  feel  that  his  part  as  Premier 
was  merely  ministerial.  He  seemed  the  very  imper- 
sonation of  intrigue,  political  and  social,  with  ability 
and  habilite  equal  to  any  emergency. 

Among  other  cardinals  I  met  were  BEDINI,  who  had 
come  over  as  a  legate  to  the  United  States,  and  whom 
I  knew  at  that  time,  and  ALTIERI,  for  whom  I  con- 
ceived a  high  opinion  as  an  amiable  and  accomplished 
person.  The  latter  nobly  exposed  himself  in  taking 
care  of  the  poor  during  a  cholera  panic. 

I  remember  hearing  Pere  HYACINTHE  preach  elo- 
quently at  the  French  church  in  Rome.  He  after- 
ward passed  two  or  three  days  with  me  at  Brookline, 
since  he  made  so  bold  a  stand  against  Ultramontanism 
and  Papal  Infallibility.  One  of  the  most  interesting 
conversations  I  ever  listened  to  occurred  at  my-  own 
table  between  him  and  Louis  Agassiz,  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  unity  of  the  human  race  and  the  Bible 
history  of  creation.  He  impressed  me  as  a  modest, 
amiable  man,  with  a  good  deal  of  genius,  much  earnest 
faith,  and  great  eloquence,  but  with  hardly  energy 
enough  to  take  the  lead  in  a  new  Reformation. 


102  A   FRAGMENT 

I  paid  several  visits  to  Rome  at  long  intervals ;  and 
though  my  time  there  was  chiefly  devoted  to  art,  I 
had  opportunities  of  mingling  in  society  at  some  great 
houses.  I  recall,  in  particular,  a  splendid  entertain- 
ment given  by  Prince  DORIA  on  the  marriage  of  his 
daughter,  and  brilliant  receptions  at  the  Colonna 
Palace,  where  the  Due  de  GRAMMONT,  the  Comte  de 
SARTIGES,  and  the  Marquis  de  NOAILLES  were  succes- 
sively in  official  residence  as  Ambassadors  of  France. 
The  recent  death  of  the  hospitable  and  much  lamented 
wife  of  my  compatriot  and  friend,  the  sculptor  STORY, 
has  reminded  me  how  often  I  have  been  privileged  to 
meet  distinguished  or  agreeable  people  in  their  spa- 
cious apartment  in  the  Barberini  Palace. 

Of  local  Italian  celebrities,  the  two  I  knew  best 
were  that  accomplished  scholar  and  profound  student 
of  Dante,  the  blind  Duke  of  SERMONETA,  and  the  emi- 
nent archaeologist,  VISCONTI,  who  was  kind  enough  to 
point  out  to  me  in  person  numerous  objects  of  interest, 
and  to  explain  many  curious  things  not  within  reach 
of  the  ordinary  tourist.  Sermoneta  was  head  of  the 
great  house  of  Caetani,  the  most  ancient  of  the  Roman 
nobility ;  but  this  did  not  prevent  him  from  being  a 
leader  of  the  progressive  party,  with  a  much  greater 
love  for  exquisite  design  than  for  old  forms  and  faiths, 
and  with  eyes  wide  open  to  everything  new  in  litera- 
ture and  government.  No  greater  contrast  could  be 
imagined  than  that  which  existed  between  him  and  the 
head  of  another  great  Roman  family  to  whom  I  owed 
much  kindness,  Prince  MASSIMO,  the  alleged  descendant 
of  Fabius  Maxim  us,  intelligent,  accomplished,  but  full 


OF   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  103 

of  superstitious  reverence  for  traditions,  and  an  un- 
questioning devotee  of  the  Papacy.  I  sometimes 
thought  that  a  compromise  of  their  two  natures  and 
characters  would  make  the  best  type  of  a  Roman 
citizen  in  those  days. 

Far  the  most  interesting  man  I  met  during  my  first 
visit  to  Florence,  in  1860,  was  the  blind  GINO  CAPPONI, 
alike  distinguished  as  a  scholar  and  a  patriot,  whose 
ancestor  of  the  same  name  in  the  Middle  Ages  had  also 
been  a  leader  of  the  popular  party. 

I  have  mentioned  having  seen  the  excommunication 
of  VICTOR  EMMANUEL  placarded  on  the  outer  walls  of 
St.  Peter's.  He  soon  afterward  entered  Florence  in 
triumph,  and  I  was  presented  to  him  at  a  ball  at  the 
Pitti  Palace.  I  met  him  seven  years  later  at  an  enter- 
tainment given  by  the  municipality  of  Florence  in  honor 
of  the  marriage  of  Prince  Humbert  and  the  beautiful 
Princess  Marguerite  of  Savoy.  A  man  of  coarse  mould 
and  coarser  habits  of  life,  Victor  Emmanuel  looked  gal- 
lant and  brave  as  Caesar,  impatient  of  all  observances 
and  conventionalities,  and  sometimes  breathing  defiance 
to  all  about  him.  In  the  ball-room  at  the  Pitti,  hedged 
around  by  officers  and  ladies  of  his  court,  he  seemed 
like  a  wild  boar  at  bay.  But  he  had  a  great  part  to 
play;  and  he  played  it  with  more  moderation  than 
might  have  been  expected  from  such  a  purely  animal 
nature.  Amadeus,  his  second  son,  who  died  after  hav- 
ing been  for  a  short  time  King  of  Spain,  whom  I  saw 
at  the  head  of  a  tournament,  gave  pleasing  indica- 
tions of  intelligence  and  modesty,  and  exhibited  both 
gallantry  and  grace. 


104       A  FRAGMENT  OF  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

I  had  a  piece  of  rare  good-fortune  in  seeing  CAVOUR 
at  Turin  in  1860.  Madame  de  Circourt  had  given  me 
a  note  to  him,  and  I  found  him  just  forming  a  new 
Cabinet  of  which  he  had  been  appointed  Premier.  As 
he  could  not  receive  me  at  the  moment,  he  wrote  at 
once  to  invite  me  to  the  Foreign  Office  the  next 
morning,  where  I  spent  an  hour  with  him.  He  was 
most  cordial  and  charming,  and  gave  me  a  full  impres- 
sion of  one  whose  loss  to  Italy  was  to  be  irreparable, 
as  indeed  it  soon  proved  to  be,  for  he  died  in  the 
following  year,  leaving  no  one  who  could  adequately 
supply  his  place. 

With  him  I  close  the  list  of  Continental  celebrities 
whom  I  have  known.  As  I  look  back  upon  my 
acquaintance  with  them,  CAVOUR  seems  to  me  to  have 
been,  all  things  considered,  the  wisest  and  greatest 
of  them  all. 


ADDRESSES  AND  SPEECHES  BY  HON.  ROBERT  C. 
WINTHROP  on  Various  Occasions.  1835-1886. 
In  four  volumes.  8vo.  Little,  Brown,  &  Co., 
Boston. 

LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF  JOHN  WINTHROP,  Governor 
of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony.  1588-1649. 
By  HON.  ROBERT  C.  WINTHROP.  In  two  vol- 
umes. 8vo.  Little,  Brown,  &  Co.,  Boston. 

WASHINGTON,  BOWDOIN,  AND  FRANKLIN,  as  por- 
trayed in  Occasional  Addresses.  By  HON. 
ROBERT  C.  WINTHROP.  8vo.  Little,  Brown, 
&  Co.,  Boston. 


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